Shadows Fall

  “Are you trying to take the piss?” said the dog sternly.

  “Well, really,” said the Ostrich, flustered.

  “Ah, shut up and get on with it, or I’ll set fire to your trousers.”

  “I’m not wearing any trousers.”

  “That’s your problem, pal. Now shut your face and give your beak a rest, it’s my turn to talk.” The dog looked out over the packed Court. “We are in dead trouble. No one in town knows exactly how the enemy got in here, but it’s bloody obvious they couldn’t have done it without inside help. Which means there are traitors among us. It’s also clear the enemy’s no damn amateur. He’s well armed and well equipped, and you can bet he’ll be back, in force. If you’re expecting the humans to protect you, you can think again. They don’t know any more than we do. Right now, they’re running around in ever-decreasing circles and disappearing up their own backsides. I’ve seen cats stoned out of their tiny minds on catnip that looked more organized than the humans do right now. Which means, for those of you who’ve been paying attention, that we’re on our own. It’s up to us to defend ourselves. We are in deep shit, and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.”

  For a long time, no one said anything.

  “So, in your opinion,” said the Ostrich, “things are looking rather glum?”

  “Are you trying to be funny, pal? Did you not hear a word I’ve been saying?”

  “Of course, my dear chap, but we mustn’t let ourselves get down-hearted. I’m sure we can rely on the proper authorities to do what’s right on our behalf.”

  “What proper authorities? The Sheriff can’t even find a bloody murderer, let alone stop an invasion force, and Old Father Time has holed up in his Gallery, and won’t talk to anyone. The only person I’ve seen with the right idea is that bloody Bear with his gun.”

  “You’re not having it,” said Bruin Bear icily. “Find your own gun.”

  “You’re not listening, damn you! The enemy’s coming, and he’s coming in force. What are we going to do?”

  The Ostrich buried his head in his bucket of sand.

  Scottie sighed tiredly. “We’re on our own. No one’s going to help. We can’t afford to be funny any more.”

  —

  Rhea Frazier brought her car to a halt outside Leonard Ash’s house, and tried to convince herself she was doing the right thing. She was here on business, as Mayor of Shadows Fall, because she needed to know what Ash could tell her about James Hart. She was concerned about what Hart’s return meant for the town, particularly since Old Father Time had granted him an audience so readily. Time wasn’t usually that accommodating. She was here on business, nothing more. Rhea sighed, and looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. Maybe if she said it often enough, she’d be able to believe it. Maybe.

  She looked at the Ash house from the safety of her car. It was a pleasant-looking detached house, modern and cheerful, set comfortably back from the road. A wide gravel path led through the sculptured grounds to the front door. Hearing the gravel crunch under her tyres on her way up the drive had brought back all sorts of memories. She’d come here often when Ash was still alive, sometimes with Richard Erikson, sometimes not. Mostly not, towards the end. She’d come sweeping up the drive, feeling her pulse race just a little as she looked for her first glimpse of Leonard. He was always there, opening the front door as her car ground to a halt, waiting for her with a smile and a kiss and an arm round her waist. They’d been so happy, so much in love… but that was three years ago, before he died, and many things had changed since then.

  There was no sign of him now, and Rhea shook her head as she realized she’d been unconsciously waiting for him to make his usual appearance. Either he wasn’t in, or her arrival didn’t matter to him any more. Leonard lost interest in a lot of things, after he died. She shrugged quickly, turned off the car’s engine, and listened to the silence. The Ash house stood on the outskirts of town, away from the hurly-burly of its many realities. There wasn’t even a bird singing. Probably had ordinances against that sort of thing in this neighbourhood. She opened the door and stepped out of the car, doing it quickly so she wouldn’t have the chance to think about what she was doing, and change her mind. She’d already changed it half a dozen times on the way here. She locked her car door, absently enjoying the quiet thump of all the locks closing. She liked it when machinery worked the way it was supposed to. It made her feel secure. There’d been little enough of that in her life, these past three years.

  She walked up to the front door, trying hard to look calm and confident, just in case… anyone… was watching. She was still wearing her smart black outfit from the funeral earlier, though she’d left the pillbox hat with its veil back in the car. Leonard didn’t like hats. He never wore them himself, and tended to make desperately humorous remarks about those who did. She didn’t think she could stand his sense of humour, not on top of everything else. She stopped before the front door, took a deep breath, and pushed the doorbell. She could hear it ringing faintly inside the house. There was no other response. Somewhere, a bird was singing. It sounded lonely.

  A dark shadow appeared beyond the opaque glass of the door, drawing unhurriedly nearer, and Rhea felt a sudden surge of relief as she realized it wasn’t tall enough to be Leonard. The door swung open, and Leonard’s mother smiled with genuine warmth on seeing Rhea. Martha Ash was a short woman, barely five feet tall, with a frizz of dark curly hair and calm grey eyes. She wore smart, sensible clothes, understated jewellery, and gold-rimmed spectacles that she was always misplacing. Rhea had always got on well with her, and she realized with something like shock that although she’d once thought of Martha as a friend, she hadn’t been to see her once since Leonard came back from the dead.

  “Rhea, my dear; it’s so good to see you again. Do come in. We’ll have some tea; I’ve got a kettle boiling.”

  “Thank you,” said Rhea automatically. “Tea would be nice. Is Leonard home? I need to talk to him about something.”

  Rhea wanted to wince at the awkward words even as they left her mouth, but if Martha was aware of her unease, she gave no sign of it. She stepped back to let Rhea enter, and her voice was calm and unconcerned.

  “Leonard’s out at the moment, but he won’t be long. Go on through into the lounge, and I’ll be with you in a moment. You do remember the way?”

  “Yes, thank you. I remember.”

  Rhea moved past Martha into the spacious hall, and the familiar scents of the Ash house hit her as though she’d never been away. There had been a time, not all that long ago, when this house had been as familiar to her as her own home. She recognized the framed prints on the walls, and the feel of the thick pile carpet under her feet. The hall was open and airy, and her shoes made no sound on the carpet. A sudden sense of peace washed over her, and it seemed to Rhea that she was walking through her memories, that she was back in the past, when the world still made sense. Any minute now Leonard would come running down the stairs to greet her… Rhea forced herself out of that train of thought. That was then, this was now. Things were different now.

  The lounge was open and airy and very comfortable. Rhea put her purse down on the handy table by the door, and walked slowly forward into the huge room. Ash’s parents were supposed to be quite rich, though they always preferred to refer to themselves as comfortably well off. A polite euphemism that appeared to mean loaded, but not ostentatious. Out beyond the open french windows lay a vast expanse of garden, lovingly tended and bullied into line by Thomas Ash, Leonard’s father. Thomas spent a lot of time in the garden. On days when the weather wouldn’t permit it, he tended to pull up a chair before the french windows and sit watching the garden, as if to make sure it wouldn’t misbehave in his absence. He’d never had much to do with Rhea, though he was always polite, in a mumbling, absent-minded way. At first Rhea had thought it was because she was black, but it didn’t take her long to discover that Thomas was like that with everyone, including Martha and Leonard. I
t wasn’t that he disliked people. He just didn’t have much to say to them. Unless you were interested in gardening, and then you couldn’t shut him up. The weather was clear and fine at present, so presumably he was out there now, staring thoughtfully at some inoffensive bush with a pair of secateurs in one hand, and his pipe clenched firmly in one side of his mouth.

  Rhea turned away from the windows as she heard movement behind her, but it was only Martha, carrying a silver tray loaded down with all the necessities for making tea. There was even an assortment of chocolate biscuits on a plate. Rhea smiled. She’d always had a soft spot for chocolate biscuits, and Martha never failed to provide a few, just to tempt her. The two women pulled up chairs on opposite sides of a low table, and busied themselves with the tea things. Finally they both had a cup just the way they liked it, and sat back in their chairs. Martha looked at Rhea appraisingly.

  “You’ve lost some weight since I last saw you, dear. Are you eating properly?”

  “Yes, Martha. Though with the pressure of work just recently, it’s not unusual for me to have to eat on the run.”

  “You should always make time for a proper meal. Dashing back and forth does nothing at all for the digestion.”

  And then they sat for a while in silence. Martha was waiting for Rhea to make the first move, and they both knew it. She felt uncomfortable under Martha’s calm gaze; there was a time she could have said anything to Martha, anything at all, but not now. She ran through a dozen possible openings in her mind, but they all sounded false, or trite. Martha would see through anything, except the truth.

  “I need to talk to Leonard. It’s town business.”

  “I thought it probably must be, to bring you out here again. Leonard’s out walking. He does a lot of that, these days. He doesn’t sleep any more, you see, and that makes him terribly restless. But he’ll be back soon. He had a feeling you’d be along some time today.”

  Rhea raised an eyebrow. “Does he often have… feelings like that?”

  “Oh yes. And they’re usually quite accurate. He says he sees things much more clearly since he died.”

  That last word hung on the air between them, refusing to be ignored or overlooked. Rhea opened her mouth to say something and then shut it and tried again.

  “How do you cope with him being dead?”

  Martha sighed, and looked away. Her gaze lingered on the garden, as though looking for her husband for support, but after a moment she turned back and met Rhea’s gaze with her own.

  “It’s not been easy. The first Thomas and I knew of his return was the night after the funeral. We’d gone to bed early. The house had seemed so empty without him. We were still suffering from the shock of his death. He died so suddenly. I always worried about him riding that motorcycle, but I never really thought… but then, I don’t suppose anyone does, really. Motorcycle crashes are things that happen to other people.

  “We were in bed, the lights out, both of us wanting to hide from the day in sleep, but neither of us able to. And then the doorbell rang. I sat up and turned on the light, and looked at the bedside clock. It was barely half past twelve. Thomas got up and put on his dressing-gown, muttering all the time about being disturbed at such an hour. I got up too, and went down the stairs with him. I don’t know why. Or perhaps I did, on some deep, basic level. We stopped at the front door, and Thomas asked loudly who it was. And on the other side of the door a voice said It’s me, Dad. I’ve come home.

  “We looked at each other, but we didn’t say anything for a long time. And then Thomas unlocked the door, and opened it. Leonard was standing there, smiling slightly, looking neat and presentable, just as he’d looked in his coffin before the funeral. He looked from Thomas to me and back again, as though unsure of his reception. I took him in my arms and held him as tight as I could. I had some crazy idea that if I didn’t hold on to him hard enough, make it clear how welcome he was, he’d disappear and we’d never see him again. I was crying so hard I couldn’t talk, and Thomas kept patting first me on the shoulder and then Leonard, as though he wasn’t sure who needed him most.

  “I finally let go of Leonard and took his hands in mine. They felt cold. Not unnaturally so, but as though he’d been standing out in the night too long. I brought him back in and made him sit by the fire, and his father sat with him while I went and made some tea. Thomas was still patting Leonard on the shoulder over and over, saying how good it was to see him. We’d heard about such things happening before, this is Shadows Fall after all, but we had no reason to believe… that sort of thing only happened to other people. Like motorcycle crashes. But he was back, and that was all that mattered. We didn’t ask any questions.

  “It was a few days before we noticed the changes. It was definitely Leonard, no question of that, but… not all of him. As though when he came back, he left part of himself behind. He didn’t eat or drink any more, or sleep. He used to sit up all night reading, or watching television with the sound turned down so as not to disturb us. He lost interest in all the things that used to fill his time. Things… and people. A lot of his friends came round, the moment they heard. Richard Erikson was here within the hour. But none of them stayed long. Leonard was always scrupulously polite to them, but they all felt uncomfortable in his presence, after a while. He wasn’t the Leonard they remembered. He’d been somewhere they could never understand, and he carried its dust on his shoes. So they all left, one after the other, and they never came back. Leonard made no effort to hang on to them. The spark wasn’t in him any more.

  “I hoped it was just a temporary thing, that he hadn’t “woken up” all the way. I kept waiting and hoping, watching him for some sign of what was missing, but it never came. He was my son, I never doubted that, but… not all of him. Only part of him came back. Is that why you stayed away, Rhea?”

  “No. I don’t even have that excuse. When I first heard, I couldn’t believe it, and then I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to. The man I loved was dead and buried. The last thing I wanted to see was some double with his face and voice. I kept telling myself it wasn’t really him, and eventually I managed to convince myself, on every level but the one that mattered. You see, I was Mayor. I knew better. I knew people come back, sometimes. It is him, isn’t it? It’s really him.”

  “Yes,” said Martha. “It’s him.”

  They sat for a while in silence, looking at everything but each other, and then Martha leaned forward and put her hand on Rhea’s. “You’ve always known it was him, dear. Why did you never come? Do you know why?”

  “Yes,” said Rhea quietly. “Because I knew that even if he had come back, it wasn’t to stay. It never is. Sooner or later, the reason for his coming back will fade, until it isn’t strong enough to hold him any more, and then he’ll go away again. He’ll die and he’ll stay dead. I couldn’t face losing him a second time.”

  For a moment Rhea thought she might cry, but she didn’t. It was an old hurt, and it didn’t have the power over her that it once had. And anyway, she was a politician, and used to being in control of her emotions. These days, she only cried when it was expedient, and only then if the cameras were around. She sniffed once, and then smiled briefly at Martha to show everything was all right. They both heard the front door open, and Rhea was quickly on her feet, as though part of her wanted to run and hide from what was coming. She made herself stand still, trembling slightly, and in the end it was Martha who got up and went out into the hall. There was a brief murmur of voices, and then Martha’s voice rose clearly on the quiet.

  “Leonard, dear, come through into the lounge. You have a visitor.”

  Rhea braced herself, but it was still something of a shock when Ash appeared out of the hall to smile at her the way he always used to. Her heart was racing slightly, not exactly from pleasure. He looked much as he always did; his clothes were casual and sloppy, and his hair needed a good combing. He stepped forward to greet her, and for one horrible moment Rhea thought he was going to put out a hand for her to shake.
She couldn’t have touched him, not for anything. In the end, he just smiled and nodded to her amiably, and perhaps a little absent-mindedly, as though part of his attention was somewhere else, fixed on some other, more important matter.

  “Hello, Rhea,” he said calmly. “It’s good to see you here. I take it mother’s been looking after you all right… ah yes, the chocolate biscuits are out. You should feel honoured, Rhea; mother doesn’t get the chocolate biscuits out for just anyone.”

  “I need to talk to you,” said Rhea brusquely. “It’s important.”

  “I thought it must be, to have brought you out here after so long. Let’s go upstairs. We can talk in my room. It’ll be more private there.”

  “You’re welcome to the lounge,” said Martha. “I can disappear, if I’m in the way.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Ash. “I prefer to talk in my room. I feel more concentrated there.”

  He turned and left the lounge without waiting to see if Rhea was following him. She gave Martha a quick smile of thanks, and hurried after him. She remembered the way to his room, even though it had been some time since she’d last seen it. Not since he’d died, and she’d gone to his room on a kind of pilgrimage, to say goodbye to his things. Now old memories came crowding around her, jostling for her attention, but she held them firmly at arm’s length. She was here on business. Nothing more. Ash was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, holding open the door to his room. She walked past him, and then stopped just inside the room. It was exactly as she remembered. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all.

  “I spend a lot of time in here,” said Ash quietly. “It’s full of memories for me to hang on to. I don’t sleep any more, but I spend hours lying on the bed. Thinking, remembering, trying to keep a grip on all the things that make me me. It helps to have my things around me; my books and my records, the brush and comb and deodorant on my dresser. All the little things that the living use every day and never think twice about. I don’t use them any more, but I like to look at them. They help me… pretend.”