No cops, no pigs, nothing normal, nothing dull or boring, no laws beyond the House and all who live here, as one, working, breathing, loving, dancing, dying!

Her voice wavered, the meaning slurred.

From the roots. As one, as one, alive in death!

She stood her ground, the others with her now, residents and visitors alike, and more of them coming in by both doorways.

Hobbes drew Martin to him. He looked around desperately, hoping to see Esme, his one friend in here, but saw dark shapes only, phantoms in the room. The spores took flight, affecting his sight, his hearing, his sense of taste. They seemed to be closing in, sticking to his flesh, his tongue, his eyelids. He tried to brush them off, in vain.

His vision was blurred.

His breathing slowed. His heart was pounding.

The humming noise filled his head, louder than ever.

He felt unsteady in his feet.

Martin’s hand in his, still there, still tight. Hold on!

One more step … falling … falling … one more … falling …

And then he saw her. Detective Hobbes saw the woman in the blue dress, the blue dress with the yellow flowers, the ghost herself, Adeline, Miss Graves, Miss Adeline Graves of Bridlemere. And she showed him the wound in her side, proud in her movement, displaying the torn cloth, and the flesh itself, opened up to let the blood flow from the wound.

The Blackbird

He made it as far as Camberwell, then pulled over to the side of the road. His vision was still affected, and it wasn’t safe to drive. He rested for a moment without saying anything, his son beside him in the passenger seat, also silent. Martin’s hands lay twitching on his lap, and his head was bowed, his eyes closed. By the dashboard clock it was half past ten. There was a pub close by, its windows ablaze, music and laughter heard from within as a customer opened the door. But Hobbes couldn’t face that: too many people, too much noise. He looked across the street and saw the lighted window of a café among a row of darkened shops. The place looked empty, or nearly so. Much better. He had to stir Martin from sleep, to make him get out of the car and walk across the road. The café was brightly lit, overly so, and Hobbes’s eyes ached. He could hear the electric buzz of a fluorescent tube above, like noise touching his skin. They sat at a table and Hobbes ordered for both of them, coffee for himself and a mixed grill for the lad. Now his son was eating voraciously. Maybe he’d been starved in that place, living off air and hope, and shared moments in the cold rooms.

‘Is that good?’

No reply, but let that be. It was enough to have him back in the world.

Hobbes lit a cigarette and ordered a second coffee. He looked round. There was an old guy at a corner table, and a young couple waiting for their food, with a middle-aged women serving, and a cook heard as a voice from a back room. The smell of fat and the sizzle of bacon as it hit the pan.