“Then find a fucking cartographer,” the thing that was Fledermaus said.

The vast shadows behind them coalesced, and bellowed in an invisible gale.

Somewhere, there was the sound of wind chimes.

When the Stranger woke, he found himself alone by the side of the old white road. The sound of the horses raised him from his stupor, their neighing and farting and the patient sound of cloven hooves stamping on earth, of tails swishing, of grass being ripped from the ground and chewed. The fire in its circle of stones was dead, and had been so for some time. He stood up groggily. The day was overcast and the sun was wreathed in mist. Of the tinkerers and their wagon there remained no sign. The Stranger relieved himself and washed sparingly. When he went inside the old clown chapel he saw that only his boot prints were in the thick layer of dust on the floor. And yet when he reached the place behind the dais he saw that the stained glass window with the Harlequin’s visage had been violently broken and the pieces scattered on the floor.

Tucked on the wooden board, behind where the window had been, was a small and naked dandelion.

The Stranger rode out that day along the twisting road, the horses following patiently behind him. By mid-afternoon the road had begun to grow faint at the edges, and soon it had faded away entirely, and when he looked back he could not see a sign that it had ever been there. He rode on and soon he saw the small outpost town of Kellysburg in the distance, its dismal single-storey buildings with their chimneys churning black smoke into the air, and in the distance like a series of hash signs was the railway line.

The Stranger spurred on his horse and rode into town.

The Long Drop

THREE:

THE LONG DROP