**********
THE HARROWING OF CHELSEA RICE
**********
1.
**********
And so it was that the boy-exile came down from the land of Nok at the head of a caravan, its eight wagons driven forth by nine oxen and the whip crack of his uncle-servant beside him. They came with a wealth of gifts for the host of Berumbaal that day, gifts of myrrh and samite and moonstone and silverlings; temptations to woo the sorcerer's fancy. But no gift was comelier than himself – for legend fancied it (and fancied it right) that Agaroth's court boasted sixteen brides – and all of them were men. "And so, I sell myself," he said, "and cast away my name, that I would come to him as a virgin boy, prostrate and un-besmirched, to win his fancy," for with the sorcerer's great powers and armies he might yet win back the land of Nok. But would he be enough? Tonight would not be his first in meeting the Great Agaroth of Berumbaal. That was a decade past -- when the boy was a prince and his father ruled over Nok and even its surliest neighbours paid him tribute -- and so it had been that day when the mighty sorcerer came with his lavish host to the gates of his father's palace. His Man-Brides bore his staves and standard, the White Manticore, and at the flanks of his host were fifty armoured outriders, the steel points of their magically-forged spears glinting the sunlight. Agaroth was clad imperiously that day in a ruby-encrusted gold breastplate, gilded helm and flocking white cloak. He was of wild Northern blood (so told by his wavy mane of flame-coloured hair) and seasoned in combat (also told by the straight cut scar beneath his left eye) but having made pilgrimage to the Forest of Knowledge the young barbarian had become a feared sorcerer. He marched up the steps of the great palace more god than man, yet bent the knee to his father as any man would. Why? Loyalty? Love? Not fear certainly, nor reverence. Whatever it was that earned Agaroth's fealty in those times, the son hoped dearly that some shred of it yet remained. If that was not enough to win the sorcerer of Berumbaal over, he could only hope his gifts, and if need, be his maidenhead, would prove to be enough.
Satisfied with that, Chelsea exhaled and clicked the save icon. So far as introductions went he was sure he could do better -- but that was for editing and right now he was just really motivated to write. The last chapter of The Seventeen Man-Brides of Agaroth was well received on his blog (fifteen comments!) despite a complaint that it was taking forever to get to the sex. But Chelsea didn't mind it much. Hell, he took it as a compliment. All this new chapter needed was a bit of proof-reading and then he would post it.
"Chelsea?" It was his mother. "Can I come in?"
He quickly clicked minimize on the story and brought up a tab for screen protectors on EBay (something he had been spying earlier) before he let her in. Everything else was fine. His room was unusually orderly for a student – his minimal wardrobe tidily squared away inside his wardrobe and chest of drawers, his PS4 games and extra controller tucked up inside his TV unit, his books and graphic novels all carefully organized along his wall fixtures. The only untidy thing was probably an empty co-codamol packet on the carpet next to his bedside coffee table. It fell off last night and he hadn't bothered to pick it up. "Come in."
His mother padded in softly on her pink slippers. Other than those she was already dressed for work, with her hair pinned back and that grey cotton dress suit all freshly pressed and primped. Margaret Rice was a working woman in the frankest sense -- not even today of all days would she take off – nor would she allow Chelsea to do the same. "Good morning, Chelsea. How... how are you doing today?"
There's two dozen balled up tissues in my bin, thought Chelsea. That's how I'm doing. "I'm okay. Just working on my novel."
"Cool beans," she said. "Maybe one of these days you'll even tell me what it's about?"
It's about an ignorant boy selling his arsehole to an evil warlock in exchange for his country. For Christ's sake, I'll never tell you about it. "Maybe."
And then the room went silent. Chelsea's shoulders depressed as he watched his mother struggle for something to say, something to keep the pretence of a healthy conversation going before she brought up the inevitable. He didn't wait long.
"Chelsea, it's okay to let it out sometimes," said Margaret. "I know how much you miss Nancy."
You don't have a clue. "I know that, Mum. I'm fine."
Margaret gave him that narrow-eyed `don't lie to me' glare but she didn't press the matter. She knew better than that. As a kid, Chelsea recalled his Dad telling her to "let him grieve his own way" and to her credit she had held to that – but only grudgingly. Maybe that was one of the reasons Chelsea didn't like his mother very much? It wasn't enough for her to know that he was hurting, she had to see it for herself, like he had to prove something to her. She didn't really understand him, but he understood her too well. They would never be close.
Margaret sighed in defeat. "Be back on time, okay? We're going to light a candle for her."
Lighting a candle on the anniversary of his sister's disappearance was a tradition now. Every May 9th, their own personal 9/11. Tonight's candle would be the ninth.
"Okay." He said.
She frowned at him. Then she told him "goodbye" and shut the door behind her.
**********
That morning Chelsea followed all the rituals of preparation for college attendance in a quiet, blank haze. He took a shower, combed his hair, spritzed himself with some Lynx, ironed his shirt and trousers, slipped them on and topped them off with his dark navy blazer and maroon tie. He went over his homework, grabbed all the notebooks and text books he needed for today's classes then stuffed them all into his satchel. His Dad called up to him and asked him if he wanted any breakfast before he left for college and Chelsea yelled back, "No, but thank you!"
Better for him to pick something up on the way than suffer another awkward, unhelpful conversation about the anniversary. His head was killing him again so before he left he went into the kitchen and popped two co-codamol with some Evian. His father Tom stood by the hob frying eggs. Margaret's dishes sat in the sink waiting to be washed. "Sure you don't want some, Chelsea? I could scramble them with cheese and put some prosciutto on the side, just like you used to like."
Like Nancy and I used to like, thought Chelsea. "Seriously, I'm fine, Dad. But thank you."
His father pulled a soft smile and shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said. And to Chelsea's great relief he left it at that. Tom Rice was a burly guy, 6.5 in height with a bushy black beard to match it, but his appearance said nothing of his character. He was calm and attentive and considerate, and comfortable letting Chelsea express himself the way he wanted. When Margaret gave him shit for growing out his hair so long (all the way past his shoulder blades) Tom convinced her to let it be. Tom had become a kind of peace broker between his son and his wife these last few years.
"Get home from school on time," he said. "And don't buy any food on the way, I'm making macaroni and cheese tonight."
"Okay," said Chelsea. "Bye, Dad."
Tom waved him goodbye with an eggy spatula.
The boy wasn't stupid. He knew his father was just putting on a brave face for him. You see unlike Margaret; Tom couldn't work on the anniversary. Before long he would un-pocket his iPhone and thumb through his daughter's old photos. He would cry a bit, call up Grandma White in Nottingham, maybe even break something; but he'd get it all out of his system and be strong for Margaret and Chelsea when they got back home. His way of coping suited both his wife and his son. Margaret liked the fact that he processed his feelings. Chelsea liked the fact that he kept them to himself.
Outside, Chelsea popped his Sony MDR-EX110APs into his ears and put on the first track of his favourite playlist (01 – Theme of Laura). He walked from his house in Dulwich Village to East Dulwich for a 185. In Pimlico he stopped off at Pret a Manger for a coffee and a hoisin duck wrap then hoofed it the rest of the way to college.
**********
The campus of Pimlico Manor College stood a stone's throw away from the Thames; its black-painted gates visible from the southern side of Vauxhall Bridge should you find yourself gaping through the top windows of a double decker. It was a co-ed private school of Margaret's choice (one she fully intended for Chelsea and Nancy to attend together) that so far as he knew plucked 2.5 grand per year out of her pocket. Not that money was a problem -- when his Grandpa White died in 2011, his will stated that a full quarter of his leavings (roughly £72,000) was to go to Chelsea's schooling. Between his sterling SATs results and the enthusiastic endorsements of some of his old teachers Margaret was determined to get him in. Back in those days the shock of losing Nancy was still raw in everyone's mind. In hindsight? Maybe Margaret struggling so hard to get Chelsea into this school was her way of pretending that everything was still on track. Maybe if Nancy were still here to go with him, he would have loved it. But in truth...
Chelsea walked in through the stone archway of the Damilola Taylor Gate with his hands around his satchel's strap and his eyes to the ground. No one greeted him. Not that they were nameless to him. He knew them all. Corey Ellis, Janice Mayweather, Shola Echinowoke, Mustafa Abdullah, John Jacobs; everyone was there -- but there was no one to talk to. It may have been his penultimate year at Pimlico Manor but he was as friendless a wonder now as he was during his first. Now that was a time. During his enrolment he was the weirdo whose sister was in the news, his parents crying their way through a press conference as they begged anyone for information to step forward (there were still YouTube clips of the news report floating around out there). Yet as the years came and went he never got past that initial stigma of the weirdo – cliques rose and fell around him, romances grew and withered in his presence, teachers came and teachers went – but he was never a part of any of it. His place was in the backdrop of a grand drama which (after a while) amounted to little more than white noise. Whispers may yet have abounded; "Did you hear about Sally Keans? Fucking preggo!" or "Tony and Will are gonna fight after school" or "Did Denny really do a Snapchat of Annabelle's knickers?" but little of it filtered through to Chelsea Rice. Except...
"Oi! Rice Krispies!"
Fuck. Not today Jonno, please... But he did. Over by one of the courtyard benches with his two cronies, Leo Cutter and Ahmed Medhi, sat Johnathan "Jonno" Wilford – and words could not adequately describe how confused Chelsea's feelings were towards him. Physically he was everything the captain of a school rugby team should be; tall, limber and naturally muscled. Mentally he was also everything the captain of a school rugby team should be; dumb, competitive, and unthoughtful. Yet he was something else too.
Fucking beautiful.
Talk about a boy kissed by fire with that wavy carrot top. You could drink water out of his dimples, they were so deep and kissable. Even the little scar underneath his left eye, the one he got from fighting a Year 11 boy two years ago, even that was cute. For the past year Jonno Wilford was the one thing in this whole school that had one iota of Chelsea's attention. How many times had he daydreamed about Jonno dragging him behind a bike shed one day and unbuckling his trousers? How many wet dreams had he dreamt of Jonno climbing through his bedroom window in the middle of the night? Too many to count.
But none of that took away from the fact that Jonno Wilford was a complete fucking dickhead.
Everyone else at college was content to let `weirdo Chelsea' be `weirdo Chelsea' but not Jonno. If he needed someone to call him a pussy or a batty boy? Jonno was there. If he needed someone to trip him up in the corridor or steal his pencil case? Jonno was there. If he needed someone to take pictures of him falling into the mud and post them on Facebook? Jonno was there. Always smiling, always smug, always oblivious.
Some time ago it occurred to Chelsea that all Jonno's physical beauty was wasted on a mental pygmy. His mother might have been a barrister but she had a son destined to salt fries at McDonalds, or impregnate his first drunken fumble at Tiger Tiger. Yet in thinking about it, Chelsea didn't begrudge the hypothetical bitch -- at least she'd get a taste of the `physical'.
"Heads up, ponce!"
A wadded up Sausage and Egg McMuffin wrapper whirled past Chelsea's head and (coincidentally) hit the rim of a waste basket. He pretended not to notice. Jonno laughed, bumping knuckles with Leo and Ahmed before his girlfriend Riya Malhotra approached their bench and leaned in for her morning kiss and hug.
Chelsea hoped they gave each other mono.
**********
Classes were not much better that day. After signing the register with the rest of his tutor group he went across campus to the humanities building for Geography with Mrs. O'Neil. It was one of three lessons he had the misfortune of sharing with both Jonno and Riya. As usual Chelsea took his place at the rightmost desk of the rearmost row, took out his notebook and textbook in silence, as everyone around him slowly filtered in, chatting and laughing and texting. Three minutes to ten Jonno came in with Riya beneath his arm. Their desks were one across from Chelsea's. The middle one was usually occupied by Thomas Marquis but (as Chelsea was soon to learn) Thomas Marquis was off with the flu today and there wasn't a soul around to shield him from the sight of Jonno and Riya cooing at each other.
Jonno's cupid's bow gave Chelsea butterflies. Watching Riya sneak kisses on it made him retch. Even so he couldn't help watching them out of the corner of his eye, watch them hold hands under the desk and natter about their plans for the weekend, all until Mrs. O'Neil arrived.
Chelsea sat up, Jonno and Riya let each other go, and all the talking and laughing and horsing about stopped as the 54-year old Irish woman waddled in on her clunking mules to take a seat behind her desk. Everyone who hadn't already done so did the same.
"Alright class," her accent was thick as custard as she popped the lid off her marker and turned to the whiteboard. "Let's pick up where we left off yesterday? All of you turn to page 225 – plate tectonics."
Everyone turned their pages. Except Jonno. Instead (whilst Mrs. O'Neil started talking) he slipped out his HTC 10 and thumbed a text. Chelsea couldn't help himself from watching as Riya felt a buzz in her own pocket, took her phone beneath the desk, and giggled at whatever it was Jonno just sent her. They smiled at each other. Chelsea frowned daggers.
"Do you see something more interesting than my class, Chelsea?"
Chelsea looked up. Mrs. O'Neil was staring him down. When the whole class turned back to look at him, Jonno and Riya quickly hid their phones and looked away.
"Well?" Pressed Mrs. O'Neil. "Is there something in the general vicinity of Johnathan and Riya that's more interesting to you than my class? Because if there is please share it with the rest of us."
His cheeks went red hot with embarrassment. "N-no ma'am."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes ma'am."
Mrs. O'Neil frowned. "Good. Then kindly join the rest of us and pay attention, thank you very much. Now. Where were we?"
Bitch. His classmates stifled their giggles and returned to the lesson. Chelsea flipped open his textbook to page 225 to keep up, that was until he heard a slight chuckle on his right. It was Jonno, grinning like a sociopath and mouthing something at him that roughly equated to; "You. Are. Such. A. Dumb. Fucking. Faggot."
**********
He was sobbing too loudly. Although he was alone in the toilets (as he made sure of before he ducked into them) the echo was too loud. Chelsea stopped himself, sniffled, and scrubbed the snot from his nose. It wasn't just embarrassing him in front of the class that bugged him. It was her purposefully doing it in front of Jonno. His headache was back. Without water he swallowed two co-codamol.
There were no words to describe how much Chelsea hated Old Mrs. Siobhan O'Neil.
Chelsea Rice was not known amongst the faculty as a `problem pupil' but he had had many a run-in with Mrs. O'Neil. It started in halfway through Year 8 when he stopped wanting people to like him and started enjoying being left alone. He began polishing his fingernails black (and his toenails -- though no one from school could see it) and grew his hair out until it was as long as Nancy's was when they were kids. There were no written restrictions for either at this school but old Bitchface took issue with it anyway. Every day she told him he could no longer come to class looking like he did, and every following day he came to class looking exactly the same, until one random Thursday when Mrs. O'Neil just decided that she had had enough and sent him to the deputy head, Miss Appleby. What followed was a day to remember – unsheathed paperwork followed by a failed attempt at excoriation that Chelsea was smart enough to know was unearned, so he called Margaret and Margaret called Tom and the pair of them left work to come down to the college. Margaret demanded to know why her son was denied two hours' worth of tutelage over something that could have been hashed out before or after school hours. Miss Appleby tried to calm her down by explaining why. Margaret said that wasn't good enough then demanded to see Mrs. O'Neil. Mrs. O'Neil was pulled out of her last lesson of the day to explain that Chelsea's dress sense presented a `distraction' for the other students. Then Tom brought the whole thing to a victorious end – and declared that Chelsea's hair length and nail polish was "an expression of his gender identity" and to "castigate" him for it was "tantamount to an act of discrimination".
Miss Appleby winced (and Mrs. O'Neil looked for all the world like she'd just stained her shoe with a Guardian reader), but it worked. Mrs. O'Neil was excused and the following day the headmaster himself offered Tom and Margaret written and verbal apologies for the way their son had been treated that day.
But ever since then Mrs. O'Neil hated him.
She NEVER passed up an opportunity to humiliate him in front of the rest of the class and no matter how much or how hard he studied his results in Geography were always middling to poor (in contrast to every other class he took, besides PE). When the day came for Chelsea to leave this place Mrs. O'Neil was one of people he'd most enjoy seeing the back of.
Chelsea scrubbed the tears from his eyes. Neither Jonno nor Mrs. O'Neil were worth it. He unwrapped his arms from his knees then one after the other took his shoes off the toilet seat and stood upright. All that was left was for him to step outside and go to his next lesson. But he didn't move. He had his hand on the knob – but it was trembling. He couldn't move. A tear threatened to drop again.
And then he felt it.
The single best word to describe it was a sensation -- but it was so much more than that. It was a soothing warmth that seeped beneath the fabric of his blazer and his shirt all the way down to his skin until his whole upper body was bathed in it. It was a tender feeling. It felt like an embrace. A kind one. A warm one. Chelsea shivered at the tingle of it, some passing trick of the mind upon the body, and shivered as he let himself enjoy it... until it faded.
And then he opened the door.
Chelsea twisted the tap over one of the enamel basins to wash his face. Then as he was about to leave he noticed something someone had scrawled into a fogged up mirror pane overhanging all six basins. It said;
IT'S GOING TO BE ALRIGHT.
There was no telling what amateur artist wrote that but for some dumb, insane reason... it made him feel better. "I hope so," he whispered to himself. "I really hope so."
**********
After Geography came a less stressful lesson of Religious Studies. Although Chelsea shared the class with Riya there was no Jonno (thankfully) and the teacher, Mr. Santiago, was notoriously chill. He made notes on Mormonism, Neo Paganism and Scientology for an upcoming essay on the `lack of social sanctity' of new religions. After that was 1st break (which he spent in a discrete corner of the lunch hall with a can of Apple Tango and a printed copy of the Dark Eidolon). Then he had English Lit with Miss Michaels and after that rung the bell for lunch.
It was a beautiful day today. The sun was shining and you couldn't see the clouds for the blue, so Chelsea decided to have his lunch at his favourite spot in school; the `alleyway' between the library and the freshly re-painted humanities building. He loved it because it was always quiet (and out of the way from the rest of the playground), it had benches to sit on and when the weather was nice and hot the building provided shade. It was a nice place to be outdoors and left alone. Finally feeling better after his run ins with Jonno and Mrs. O'Neil, Chelsea stretched out over one of the wooden benches, sneakily slipped his earphones in to listen to Track 02 – White Noiz, then enjoyed the packed lunch Tom made for him earlier that morning; a cold salad of tuna, sweetcorn, penne pasta and sauce with an apple for dessert and a carton of Ribena to drink. After eating he took out his Dark Eidolon again, convinced it was going to be a good lunch break. That was before he overheard whispers. Chelsea turned down his music (already low just to make sure a teacher didn't catch him with his buds on) and leaned over the bench's arm to see what was going on around the corner.
It was Jonno and Riya. The rugby captain had his girlfriend up against the wall with his hands on her hips and his tongue down her throat.
There was a punching pain in Chelsea's chest as he watched them scrawl over each other. It was nowhere near as bad as the first time he'd seen them kiss (replace `punching' with `stabbing' in that instance) but it still hurt; resentment and longing like a cocktail, like an ache, like a stone in his throat. And feeling those things made him feel stupid because, looking at the two of them, he felt for all the world like swapping places with Riya – and he couldn't help it. What would it be like if Jonno stopped tormenting him for just one second and really looked at him? What would he find? Maybe someone who kissed just as good as she could? Someone who would do things to him that Riya wouldn't even consider. If Jonno pushed him to his knees and opened his trousers... Chelsea wouldn't say no.
But Jonno was a fucking idiot and all that fucking idiot wanted was Riya.
Fuck you, Chelsea thought. Fuck you, Jonno.
And then a bucket of white emulsion fell on the two of them.
No one, not Chelsea and certainly not Jonno and Riya, saw it coming. The painters who did the renovations for the humanities building two weeks ago must have left it there. Maybe one of them left the bucket too close to the ledge and a good breeze finally just knocked it off. All Chelsea knew was that one second his crush/bully was kissing someone else and the next they were both drenched in white paint. Riya screamed. A bunch of other students heard that and came running to see what was going on (and the students further away saw that and followed them to see what the fuss was) and so thirty odd kids barrelled around the corner to see a slopped-and-crying Riya hide behind a slopped-and-fuming Jonno yelling "fuck off!" at the gawking crowd they now had. Laughter ripped throughout the group. A Year 9 boy, Tyrone Whyte, took out his Galaxy S7 and started chanting "WORLDSTAR!" as Riya ran inside the building and Jonno threatened in vain to knock his teeth out.
And Chelsea grinned.
**********
Jonno and Riya's dunking was the talk of the day. Apparently, there were no spare clothes for them, so Riya called her parents to collect her early. Jonno spent the rest of the day in a green rugby shirt and smeared black trousers. Payback was a fucking bitch. Any other day Chelsea might have enjoyed the whole thing a bit more. Hell, he would've taken a picture of the whole thing and made it his desktop background! But as the day wore on, he found himself thinking more and more about Nancy.
If there was anything Chelsea wondered (besides the obvious) it was what she would have been like if they had been allowed to grow up together. He had dreamt about it. In his those dreams they were always the best of friends, going to school together, going out together, shopping together, eating together; everything. He saw himself and Nancy ogling boys in Westfield over a shared smoothie or waterfall braiding each other's hair to play Anne Boleyn and Lady Rochford (in public, not at home) and baffle all the simpletons. That was what life had cheated him out of -- not merely his sister but his best friend.
So when the last bell rang Chelsea called his Dad and told a lie.
"Mrs. O'Neil gave me an hour's detention for forgetting my textbook," he said. "I'm going to be late home. Sorry."
Tom sighed on the other side of the conversation. "Just get back as soon as possible," he said. Chelsea promised that he would even as he was making his way through Millbank and up Vauxhall Bridge Road towards Pimlico tube station. Listening to Track 03 – Forest, he tapped his Oyster at the barrier and from there made a very long journey of changeover – from Pimlico Station to Stockwell, from Stockwell Station to Moorgate via the Northern Line, then from Moorgate to Liverpool Street via the Circle Line, then from Liverpool Street to Chingford. Though it took the better part of the hour he bought himself with his little white lie, from Chingford it was only a brisk walk to Epping Forest.
On May 9th, 2008 a little girl named Nancy Elizabeth Rice attended a field trip to Epping Forest with Class A7 of Buckhurst Hill Preparatory School. It was a nature walk between 14 students and 3 faculty members that began at approximately 11:09am. At around 12:45pm Nancy Rice became separated from the group and at roughly 13:31pm she was reported missing. Her parents, Thomas and Margaret Rice were notified, and a police search was conducted from 5:08pm onwards. Nancy's backpack and one of her Wellington boots was recovered from a tree around 1.3 miles north of the site of her initial disappearance, but beyond that no trace of her was ever found. Thomas and Margaret Rice held three separate press conferences urging anyone with any information to come forward. Numerous hoax/false leads were run through by investigators and Iain Duncan Smith (the MP for Chingford and Woodford Green) made a statement about the `tragic disappearance of Nancy Rice' in the Commons.
That was a rough portion of the Wikipedia entry on his sister's disappearance.
He wandered into the forest by one of the south eastern entrances. From there, there were no black painted gates or foot-high walls to keep people out, just tall bushes and a thick procession of oak trees brooking the way. The blue skies had turned to porridge above him, and some brief but heavy rain earlier had made mulch of the footpath. Chelsea kept walking though. He had nowhere in particular to go and he had long since forgotten the particular sights and locations of the Nancy Rice investigation. He just liked to come to Epping Forest every few months and wander around. And to think. He had been doing it since he was thirteen. His parents never knew. They didn't need to. It was what Chelsea needed. And there was a twisted beauty in Epping. The trees, the springs, the rustling leaves shivering through the wind, the foxes and the sparrows, the chirping crickets and distant twig snaps. Sometimes Chelsea took it all in and imagined becoming lost in it. Maybe there (that is to say, wherever serendipity took him) he would find his sister. That was what Margaret didn't understand about Chelsea. There was a reason he could not grieve the way she did.
It was because he knew Nancy was still alive.
Chelsea did not know how. He did not know why. But he knew. He knew she was still alive somewhere out there. Tom and Margaret had given up hope. As far as they were concerned she was dead, snatched up and murdered by some psychopathic paedophile. That was the Police's final take on the matter (especially since another child, an eight-year-old boy named Stephen Fryer, also went missing in Epping six days prior to Nancy's disappearance). Even without a body to bury she was gone in their eyes. But not to Chelsea.
The footpath took two turns. One curled eastward around a half-broken stone wall with directions toward Ranger's Road, Cuckoo Brook and the Ching. The second shot straight onward off Bury Road with a fan of branching footpaths leading off in various directions across the thicket. Chelsea picked one of the latter at random. He didn't care where he was going, and he wasn't paying attention to the time. His phone battery was a few percentiles shy of death, but he wasn't bothered. He just wanted to wander through the forest like his sister had done nine years ago and see.
And then he saw something.
A burned building.
It was charred to a crisp yet upright. A ruin. A three-storey building partially collapsed upon itself with half its front wall tumbled into smoky flotsam by the footpath. The blackened boards of its first and second floors were broken open like the bones of an exposed ribcage with garbage piled throughout; burnt clothes and oaken furniture fused into lumps of charcoal. Ash suffused the wreck like snow. Yet moss grew where rainwater caught the fractured limbs of rickety rafters through a cracked open roof. Police tape and hazard cones blocked the ruins off from the curious (and the curiously stupid).
It seemed like an old tragedy (some conservationist's home and security gone up in flames one tragic night perhaps) yet Chelsea could almost taste the cinders in the air. The scent of smoke was still alive around it. This could have happened years ago, he thought. Or yesterday.
Chelsea wondered what happened here for a while – then gave up wondering and kept on up the footpath bearing northeast. There were some bushes nearby. He noticed the signpost in front of them directing the way to Hornbeam Lane. What he did not notice was that there was someone hiding in the shadows of those bushes – and that that person was watching him very intently.
**********
* Hi, thanks for reading! Comments and constructive criticisms always welcome, please e-mail me at stephenwormwood@yahoo.com . If you enjoyed this, please read my other two stories on Nifty = Wulf's Blut and The Dying Cinders (gay, fantasy/sci-fi)