Again, there was no response.

‘Any idea how long this power cut is going to last?’ Jason called out, louder, to the stranger.

No response again.

He freed himself from Emily’s hand and began crossing towards the figure.

‘Jason!’ she cautioned. Then louder, ‘Jason!’

As he reached the far side, a shiver ripped through him.

There was no one there.

He looked up and down the street. No one.

No smell of a cigar.

‘Jason!’ Emily cried out.

He turned, confused and alarmed, and hurried back over to her. ‘He – he’s vanished.’

‘Please can we go? Please?’ She began striding off at a fast pace and he had to step up his own to keep up with her.

‘We have to get out of here,’ she said.

‘He just – vanished,’ he said, finally catching her up.

‘If he was ever there.’

‘We both saw him.’

She said nothing, just kept walking, staring doggedly ahead. After a few minutes they reached the entrance to the estate, and turned left, down the hill towards the village.

The lights in all the houses down the hill were also off.

‘The joys of country living,’ Jason said. ‘Eh?’

‘I’m not finding too many joys.’

The wind was blowing even stronger now, a full-scale gale, and they were having to lean into it, struggling to walk against it. Almost, Jason thought – knowing how irrational it was – as if the wind was trying to push them back to the house. His hair was being torn painfully from the roots and he wished he’d thought to wear a hat or baseball cap. Emily reached in her pocket and tied a scarf around her head. A tin can rolled along, clattering loudly, blown across the lane in front of them. Leaves scudded, twigs and small branches skittered across their path.

‘Listen, Em, it’s going to be OK, I promise. We’ll be looking back at all this one day, soon, and laughing about it.’

‘We will? It’s never going to stop, is it? The house hates us, it wants us to leave.’

‘No, it doesn’t. Trust me, Em, it wants us to stay.’

‘Trust you?’

He stopped and turned her, gently, to face him. Staring into her eyes in the darkness, with the faint glow of his torch, he said, ‘We love each other and that’s all that matters. We’re strong together. Remember our wedding vows? To have and to hold, for better, for worse…?’

She just stared at him.

‘Em, we’ll get through this.’

They carried on down the hill in silence, passing the large words of the sign – COLD HILL – PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY THROUGH OUR VILLAGE – and suddenly Jason exclaimed, joyfully, ‘Yayyyyyy!’

They could see lights ahead. Street lights. House lights.

‘Does that mean our power might be back on?’ Emily asked.

‘Hopefully.’

‘This might be on a separate circuit or something.’

‘True.’

He turned. Lights were now back on in the houses further up the hill, behind them. ‘Look!’ he said.