There were three Fates. The Greeks called them the Moirae. Clotho, the Spinner. Lachesis, the Alloter. Atropos, the Unturning.

Clotho spun the thread of life, grasping a weathered spindle carved from the wood of the whispering tree of Dodona, the same wood that Jason used to build Argo. She stands firmly, back slightly hunched, wrapped in a colorful shawl with the stories of all the great heroes woven in. Her calloused fingers nimbly run along the fleecy yarn, spinning and spinning into the thread of life.

Lachesis, clothed in silky angelic white robes, measures the thin, delicate thread with her silver measuring rod, deciding the destiny of every living being. Atropos, enveloped in midnight black robes rimmed with intricate flowery gold embroidery, stands there patiently, until it is time to end a life, using her shears made of adanmatine and snipping the thread.

Every day, every hour, every minute, every second, the three sisters stand there, spinning, measuring, and snipping. Every life to them is merely a thread. The thread of each life is so short that it seems like in the short moment they blink, the thread they had just woven has to be cut.

When a mortal approached the three sisters, begging them to extend his life after an oracle prophesized his early death, they laughed.

“Mortals. How foolish! They think everything revolves around them. You think your lives are the most important thing on Earth. But to us, mortals’ lives are merely a piece of thread. Threads that are spun, measured, and cut, eventually tossed away to be unraveled back into yarn for new lives. Do you not understand that fate is fate?”

The steam swirling up from the mug of fresh coffee in my hands slowly condensed on the tip of my nose as I held the rim of the cup just to my chin, not yet willing to risk a sip at the risk of burning my tongue. A burnt tongue was not a death sentence, but it would definitely mar the sweetness of Granny Clarice’s special holiday cookies. I’d have to wait for my much-needed caffeine hit, as I would wait for those notoriously decadent cookies. Good things come with time.

Waking up at the crack of dawn, I spent the entire morning making what little space I had more homey; dusting every long-ignored nook and cranny, rearranging the old, rustic furniture in a more comfortable configuration, lighting vanilla candles to spread a warm aura around the small cabin… I could not remember the last time I had had visitors, and it showed. A little attention went a long way, though, and I arrived at 11 am with a general sense of pride contentedness at the modest home I had created in anticipation of my loved one’s arrival.

Finally able to take a long drink from my cooling mug, I padded around the small kitchen until I reached the window above the sink that looked out upon the snow-covered front yard; it had come down late last night, I think, blanketing the world as far as the eye could see in a clean, peaceful cover, allowing only the suggestion of the bushes and boulders underneath. I strained my eyes to see beyond the front gate- everyone had said they would be here around 11:15 am, in time to gather and have lunch. These holiday meal schedules were always a little confusing, what with having dinner around 2 pm and drinking the afternoon away, but who was I to complain? Having anyone here for any reason, under any circumstances, would be a relief.

It had been so long since anyone had come to see me that I couldn’t even remember the last time I had seen the gate opened by another person. Even the fellow who delivered my groceries would simply leave the brown bags at the very edge of the constantly closed gate- at least, I think it was a fellow. My memory failed me as I worked to recall the person I saw outside regularly- a flash of red hair was all I could muster.

It’s not that I didn’t want company- in fact, I craved it- yet I could never hold it in my grasp. I’d make a phone call to invite a friend over for tea, and they’d fail to answer. The internet out in this area was often so unreliable that trying to wait for my social media accounts to load so I could message someone, or at least observe signs of life out in the world, was so mind-numbingly slow that I’d quickly give up. Something in me knew that I had been alone much longer than I could guess, and that inkling constantly rubbed some frayed edge inside me. Had it been a month? Two? Perhaps it had been a year.

A familiar yet unnamed panic rose up in my gut- humans aren’t meant to be alone this long, are they? I held my breath as I looked around and saw the marks that solitude had taken on my life. The alarmingly deep groove in the floor, leading from the living room to the kitchen, where I had undoubtedly paced for hours. The yellowed, folded pages of overly-handled books that couldn’t have come out more than a few years ago. The rust on the front doorknob… had I really left it unopened for so long it had rusted over? How did I get my groceries inside?

A sudden rapping at my front door jolted me out of my disturbing reverie- they were here! I hastily placed the mug on the nearest flat surface, and ran to throw open the wooden door, a smile relieving my face of its previously somber frown.

As my hand prepared to turn the knob, to open the only barrier between me and the snowy expanse outside, it was met with surprising resistance- the knob wouldn’t turn even a little, as though the icy tundra outside had solidified it in its locked state. I felt the blood rush out of my face, as my one gateway into the outside world sealed itself against me.

After stiffening in surprise for a moment, I reactivated my effort to get the door open- the knob wouldn’t even jiggle, as though… as though it never had the capability to. Even pulling at it didn’t shake the doorframe as one would expect- had my door been painted shut? My mind’s eye conjured up images of faceless tricksters coming into my home while I slept, pouring cement into the cracks around the door, replacing my doorknob with a dummy that would never open.

No. No, that’s ridiculous. I shook my head and redoubled my efforts on the doorknob- it had to open, and even if I couldn’t get it loose from the inside maybe my family could help me! I could hear their voices! The relief of even hearing their murmurs through the wooden barrier was a welcome feeling.

“- thought she’d hear us, this place isn’t that big.” “ Yes but you know how she is, probably has her nose in a book as usual.” that had to be Granny Clarice- my chest swelled in relief and love at hearing her voice.

“Hey, hey!” I spoke loudly, my voice crackling from disuse, “I uh, can’t seem to open the door, could you try? It might be frozen from the outside.”

I listened, waiting for a reply.

“It’s freezing out here, where is she? She told us to be here at this time. Has she stepped out?” “ This is so typical. She probably forgot and went somewhere. Are you surprised? Her head has never been on straight.”

"She knows we are coming, this is ridiculous.”

The panic that I had managed to quell earlier bubbled up again, this time forming into rushed words spilling from my lips- “I’m here! What are you- can’t you hear me?” I released the doorknob, slamming one open hand on the unrelenting surface in front of me, “Open the door, I know you can hear, it’s stuck, please, try and open it!” I hit the door over and over, sure that it would get their attention. Why couldn’t they hear me?

Turning my head to place my ear against the door, I caught the end of a sentence- “-waste of time, she never has us over and the one time we come, she’s not home. Let’s just go, I wasn’t looking forward to spending the afternoon with her anyway- we can have tea at mine. Paul just made a lovely roast, for him and his friends, I am sure we can get in on it.”

I stood there in disbelief, head leaning against the door in defeat- was that it? They didn’t even try to get in. How on earth had they stood there, not hearing my shouts or my pounding? Though their unkind words about me hurt, the confusion drowned out any offence I might have taken. They gave up so quickly. Why did they give up on me in such a rushed manner, despite almost no effort to get inside?

The shock and confusion suddenly felt heavy with static, and my limbs sparked to life- my hands, previously braced flat on the closed door, started shaking. My vision blurred, both with newly sprung tears and with that dark, shimmering halo that comes when something inside one’s mind snaps. I pivoted on the spot, and swiftly picked up my still-warm mug of coffee that I had hastily discarded on a newly dusted bookshelf.

The porcelain handle was only in my grasp for a moment before I had flung the mug and its contents against the nearest frosty window- it shattered on the thick, undamaged window panes, splashing white shards and black droplets all over the reading nook. Next, I picked up a fire poker and stabbed it into the thin crack between the unmoving door and its frame, manically shoving it back and forth, feeling a nail or two break off in my effort to pry the door open. It did not budge even a little. I grasped the useless poker in a white-hot grip, ignoring the sore, raw spots where my right middle and ring fingernails had been.

My eyes wide and my heart racing, I revisited the window- I had to break it, I had to get outside, nearer to my family who couldn’t have reached their cars yet. A heavy crystal vase above my fireplace caught my eye first, and I hastily picked it up above my head to build momentum and shove it through the window- I could see their shapes outside, they weren’t gone yet. I leaned sharply back to swing down, and as the vase connected with the target, I was shaken to see that it was met with surprising resistance- as thought the window panes weren’t glass, but some indestructible synthetic material. The vase bounced back in my hands, taking my upper body with it in an unceremonial arc that landed us both on the floor. Sitting up in my hazy state, I didn’t pause to try again. And again. And again. And again. And-

The sixth time the vase connected with the seemingly unbreakable window, the crystal shattered in my hands, leaving them grasping stiffly at long, sharp fragments that cut into the soft skin of my palms. Even as I dropped them with a cry of pain, some stuck into my hands at odd angles, bringing up scarlet blood that ran down my forearms in rivulets.

This gave me only a moment of pause, the sight of my bleeding hands only mildly plucking at any sense of self-preservation I could register. At that point, something broke inside me- in tandem with the vase, the frayed edge inside me ignited, and like a wild animal caught in a cage, I lost all control.

I became a whirlwind of grasping hands and kicking feet- grabbing haphazardly at anything with any reasonable weight, trying to break a window as a means of escape, kicking the door repeatedly, to the point that I could hear the delicate bones in my feet start to crack. The shards in my hands were driven deeper, and joined by shards of other breakable objects in my home- one made its way down to my left wrist, being driven down by every other object I picked up.

The strikes to my windows and door stopped being confined to action by my hands and feet and eventually I was using my elbows, my hips, my shoulders, my head- I could no longer see through the haze of pain and confusion and rage, and I was physically blind to the now torrential streams of blood exiting my major arteries, to the slow cave in of my own skull at the mercy of the unbreakable interior of my cabin. I just needed to get out. I needed to see another human being. I needed to know I was not alone. I needed to get out. I need it, human touch- how long had I been here? How old was I? Why couldn’t I remember his face, the person who brought my groceries?

As my broken body gave out, finally crumpling to the floor in front of my undamaged, perpetually shut front door, the brittle, translucent thought floated through my swiftly darkening mind’s eye, that I had been alone far longer than I could have ever guessed, and that this forced solitude must be the work of something evil and inhuman. With that, the world faded.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright, send in cleanup and put her in the machine. Set it for three hours- damage is severe today. Reset the vase, too- it created good injuries”

“Fuck man, does that happen every time?

“Nah sometimes she finds the pills we planted in her desk drawer, or she falls and hits her head, or something less crazy. Hell of a first day, huh?”

“Yeah… seriously. And this is every day for seventeen years, so far?”

“Yup! Easiest job in the world, once you get used to the cleanup. But I mean, we just get to hang out and watch this bitch do her thing all day till the show starts- I dunno, it’s like a movie, but we are getting paid.”

“Don’t you… feel bad?”

“About what?”

“Well, for... uh, for her?”

“...”

“I just-”

“Get this straight in your brain dude. She is not a little innocent lady, and we aren’t torturing her for fun. You know what she did, right?”

“Yeah I just-”

“You know she kept those kids isolated for years at a time- they couldn’t even talk to each other if they were there together.”

“Yes I get it man, I’m not saying-”

“She invited their families over to her house, while they were locked in her basement. She made friends with the parents of the kids she abducted, and had fucking dinner with them while their children were drugged and tied up and awake in her basement.”

“...yeah, sorry, I understand. Sorry, first day and everything.”

“Our punishments fit the crime. A year for every kid- they felt exactly what she is feeling, probably even something worse- we don’t even know everything she did to them, they were that fucked up when we found them. Don’t forget that.”

“Yes, sir”

“She’s getting what she deserves.”

“Right.”

“...don’t call me sir, newbie. And send in the cleaning crew.”

Parchment creases, marked in two

Hours bound: Horizon’s blue

At intersecting avenues

The Day meets Night and bids adieu

Starlight cast on (s)lumber’s cage

Milled moonbeams sawn in milk-white ways

Midnight turns the ink-black page

While Sun sleeps in ’til break of day

Past to present shadows, rolled

Time to seasons: threads of gold

’Morrow comes the minute sold

On yesterday, one second old

A little backstory...

Eric can walk across time. Over the past couple of years, he's been around a lot, seen some very unusual timelines and acquired or modified technology that allows him much faster travel than walking pace, including a tall, tubular glass and steel contraption called a sender. A twin laser-powered device capable of sending people millions of miles away, to very different timelines to the one he calls home. Another, a smaller version, a laser pistol in which he's replaced the crystal with a very special substance.

The substance? An element that crashed into a world not too far from his in the form of a meteorite. An element that has the power to repel life, preventing anyone from getting anywhere closer than half a mile from it under normal circumstances. An element, that when energised, can send people large distances.

The meteorite killed thousands when it struck by sending them to distant worlds, in a vast uncontrolled explosion.

Now, the meteorite has begun to act strangely. It normally pulses with a violet light but that colour has changed, so, Eric decides to investigate.

* * *

Eric prepared for the survey of the meteorite itself.

Using the lay of the land he’d seen from the tower he selected what he considered the safest spot, the edge of where the crater was where it came down, twenty feet from the centre rather than risk falling into the crater itself. He didn’t want to know what would happen if he was thrown out below ground level.

He shifted, careful to align his raygun exactly right, faced in the direction of the meteorite and pulled the trigger.

The moment he fired, the whole area turned into a wasteland. Again, that sensation of flight. Not as pronounced as a sender jump but this time it was different. He’d only been travelling for a minute when he felt a sudden pressure as if he’d smacked into a rubber barrier that was trying to hold him back, but the force of his laser easily overcame it. The pressure was almost painful though. Momentum forced him onwards, the repulsion trying to force him back.

He stopped and almost stumbled down into the crater. He was staring it in the face for the first time since it’d flown overhead two years ago. Ten feet long, six feet wide. A rock, as had been described, about the size of a coach pulsing with a violet light.

And then it was gone. Less than a second to see it and the repulsive force took hold and flung him back. Back away from the world of the crater. Back physically too. He saw the land not only change around him but shift. Move under his feet.

As he was moving he noticed this was very different from what he was used to too. The trees and grass appeared almost the instant the repulsion sent him flying but there was no sense of growth. No new shoots. Snow and frost appeared and vanished and appeared again in quick succession.

Eric hit the cobbles with a crash but managed to catch himself before he broke anything.

He got up and brushed himself down, staring around in shock.

Well, it looked like his village. No snow but no springtime growth either. He wasn’t even on the hill, he was on a street he recognised in Talke.

A figure appeared at the head of the street. Eric slunk into a back alley and watched as Obediah ran past wearing coal stained work clothes carrying a large bundle of clothing across his shoulders, The boy… He looked younger, smaller and very determined.

Diah continued up the hill and onto the Kidsgrove streets beyond.

“Damn Marty. Why can’t you ever be right about anything?” Eric thought as he watched the lad unwittingly run to his year at sea. “Don’t meddle. They went through hell but I don’t want to break time. This is one thing where I’ve got no idea what I’m doing. I’ll drift back. Just hope I drift forward too.”

Eric packed away the laser and flipped the switch to nullify the omnium. He relaxed, daydreamed and the clouds began to dance in the sky.

This time it wasn’t just the clouds that danced. The sun swung across the heavens at an accelerated rate and began speeding up with every “day” that passed. Pretty soon it was a flicker. Night and day switching so quickly it would’ve been enough to give a photosensitive epileptic a fit.

Then, daylight. The clouds weren’t dancing, the sun was steady in the late afternoon sky, the snow was up to his ankles. He opened his senses and sighed with relief. He was home.

“Eric to Marty.”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got problems again. I was hoping.” Eric sighed. “Oh well.”

“What? Diah’s alright isn’t he?”

“It’s not Diah. When I took Phil and Ian to see their ground zero counterparts, Beryl told me the meteorite had changed colour so I went to investigate, conducted a few experiments and just got back from using my laser pistol to fire myself at it to get a closer look.”

“What colour’s it changed to?”

“It hasn’t changed, Marty. It just looks like that from a distance. And that’s not the worst of it. It’s causing a… Edmund came up with sinkhole in time. I’ve just broken another one of your rules.”

“Which one?”

“One of the first you told me. In my bedroom when you explained the dimensions. You can’t travel backwards through it and only vary your speed forward a little… I just have!”

“What? That’s impossible!”

“How many times have you said that about stuff I’ve done before now? I just witnessed Diah running away to burn all their clothes! Didn’t follow him of course, I didn’t want to be seen. Decided the prudent thing would be to just get the hell out of there. Fortunately I drifted forwards too.”

“Why? I would’ve seriously been tempted to follow him all the way.”

“I didn’t want to change things. I know I don’t remember seeing another me that day and I’ve got no idea if the tree can grow new timelines further down the branch. Didn’t think it was worth the risk. Could’ve created a paradox or something for all I know.”

“I see your point. I take it you want me back then?”

“Yes. I think this is going to be another all hands on deck situation eventually. Now we know the thing’s not only having relativistic effects on the light it’s giving off, it’s made travel over a year back in time possible. It seriously needs breaking up. It’s too dangerous to exist in its current state anymore.”

“I’m near Wrexham right now. Not too far off from Shropshire canal, I’ll hop barges until one’s passing. Shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

“Thanks Marty, Eric out.”

Eric trudged back to the top of the street to take the bridge across the canal. Here, the hill was no longer a viable option. The cutting was too far along to cross now. it’d taken two years but soon that canal would be open again.

The professors and Tad were still there when he entered the pub half an hour later. He slumped down into his seat and sighed.

“It’s worse than we thought.”

Martin stared at him. “Worse? How? It was bad enough before!”

“I zapped myself to ground zero for speed, spoke to the bloke on the tower again, then asked Beryl to pack a couple of bags and ask them to too. Just in case. It first got noticed about a year ago by someone who’d spent a couple of weeks off but the rest didn’t notice a change for another six months, it was so gradual. It’s been blue for three. But it isn’t blue and when that thing repelled me out again...”

“What?”

“Still got the sheet?”

“Yes, Eric. Here. Why? What happened?”

Eric drew an arrow on one of the branches near the edge and wrote “we are here.” above it.

“I zapped myself to it with this.” he held up the pistol. “Saw it for about a second before being flung out again.”

He drew the arrow leading from the start point into the dip.

“So?”

“It flung me out this way.”

He drew another arrow straight across the tree to a branch his world had branched off. “I just watched Diah running away with all their clothing ready for that bonfire.”

Tad stared at the sheet of paper in shock. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Because I know that isn’t what happened. This is new to all of us. None of us thought time travel backwards was possible, only sideways. If I’d stopped him, I dread to think what would’ve happened. Besides, Diah found himself on that ship. I wouldn’t want to deprive him of that experience!”

“What do you mean what would’ve happened?”

“Do you remember Diah running away and staying missing for over a year?”

“Of course!”

“And if I changed that? Would the you I’m talking to still even exist? Would I for that matter? I wasn’t willing to take that risk.”

“How do you know it wasn’t just a world with a time delay?” Martin pondered. “One where everything that happened here just happened, well, a year later?”

“For one, the drift would’ve taken years. Remember, I’m the only me that can do it, so I’m the only me who could’ve got the families here. Add to that, Diah looked younger and when I did drift back I saw a year pass by in a matter of minutes. The sun flashing across the sky so fast it turned into a bloody strobe light.”

Martin nodded gravely. “That clinches it then. We’ve got to find some way to fix it. Disperse the meteorite.”

“More than that, we’ve got to find a way to do it safely. We know what happened when Yates tried the explosive approach. It’ll be a slow process, picking it apart with boring machines. Think that’ll be the only way though. I just hope we’ve got the time. We’ll need help.”

“Help from who?”

Eric sighed. “I’ll contact Yates. I’ve not spoken to him in a while. Maybe Seymore had a play with designing something we could use. We’ll lack the modern materials of course but that can’t be helped. I’ll nip over to Liuyisan too. Tell them some of the requirements.”

“What do you plan to do with it once it’s been dispersed?”

“Can’t leave it all in the same world. We’ll need to use senders, spread it around as widely as possible. I’m sure Yates would jump at the chance of getting his hands on more of it. I’ll have a word with Gareth too. See if he can think of a way of increasing the range of our radios.”

“Why?”

“Because if it’s happening to ours, there’s no saying ours was the biggest strike. There might be others. It could tear their world apart. At least, I think it might be able to.”

“But if the stuff did land elsewhere… And it was bigger…”

“How would they get it to experiment with? I know. I’m clutching at straws here.”

Time waits for no one but the Young at heart. The Old Ones always seem to miss Time as it flew bye. Old crows coming in to steal souls to reap the rewards of coming back to life in a different form. It's full of color, dance, and song. It's the year of the Dragon and if he drops some of his magical scales and you happen to pick them up. Your life will be balanced and well thought only time can tell. To all those well wishers and penny droppers you have some bells to ring in the new day. Bells are ringing but it's yesterday. So, tell all the Ladies in Waiting to close their doors and wake up on the otherside of the shore. No one really knows how that works. But it only last for a day or two and then your back in Time for some Good Old Day's. Where all the Merry Men has gone away but rest assure their bound to get laid and call it another day. No one is willing to keep Time because Time is no more. Just happy days reeling back and forth. Time waits for no one just smile and close your door because the magical mystery ride is closing in on you. Happy trails too you cause tomorrow was never promised to you. Is this all a dream or does it seem like another day other than yesterday or the day before that. I woke up a year wiser. Now Time is a Fact.

When Phil invited us to that party I thought it was just that. A party in an abandoned building, too dilapidated to be let out, too well-built to be torn down. Jack knew Ivy and Ivy knew Phil who knew the place and Jack and I were still seeing each other after five months. So we went. I stuck close to Jack because we were already stoned but Jack didn't want to play babysitter.

I lost him in the lobby of the building after we went in. After Phil chatted to the girl on the door with the green hair and the tie-dyed t-shirt, a ring of black metal in her nose. After I lost Ivy talking to the tall guy in the khaki dungarees with the yellow mohawk clutching a bottle of claret.

After we had danced in one of the rooms where someone had set up a sound system. After we drunk of their wine and ate their crisps and smoked their joints and took their pills. I lost him but wasn't going to be the one who panicked so I found a quiet corner and sat down and let the music wash over me. Time had speeded up while I was getting high. I needed to slow down.

The green-haired girl sidled up to me.

"So you know Phil?"

"Yeah, we have some of the same classes."

"Right," she gave me a polite, non-commital smile. "We have the same drug dealer."

"Uh huh."

"You like it here?"

"It's ok."

"Just ok?" She was looking at me as if I was some dork who didn't deserve to be there, which I was.

"It's been cool so far."

"So far," she echoed and kept on giving me that look. "I get it, you need space right now, huh?"

"Yeah." Where the hell was Jack? "I'm just going to chill outside for a bit."

"Ok, take your time." I hated her smile, but couldn't blame her. My hair was that brown everyone's hair is when it hasn't been dyed and it just straggled in my ponytail. My jacket was this blue puffer jacket that had probably never been cool. My make-up was barely there, just a bit of ink smudged at the corners of my eyes. Freckles pasted my face like measles.

"Uh, let Phil know I'm outside if you see him," I managed to mumble.

"Ok."

I stopped thinking of the girl and her pity for me when I got outside and sat on the steps of the building. It was laced with graffiti. Tags and murals. Someone had sprayed on a whole army, pennants fluttering and tall figures with eerily beautiful faces, eyes like jewels bearing swords and halberds coloured like ice and fire. Dragons, red and green, circled the scene, their scales somehow iridescent even on the flat, grey concrete, clouds of purple smoke billowing from their nostrils. I checked my phone. There was a message from Jack.

HEY WHERE R U?

OUTSIDE

I pulled my coat around me and huddled on the steps waiting for my fug to pass. That was it. I was just too wasted. Paranoid and edgy.

WHERE?

OUTSIDE

I was annoyed with Jack. Maybe I'd been a drag but he'd been really selfish going off like that when I wasn't feeling well. Maybe we should break up, I thought bitterly, but Jack did kung fu and liked obscure bands he was always inviting me to and always talked when I called him at 2am and never complained when I smoked his weed and didn't pay him back.

WHERE R U?

PHIL AND ME WE'RE GOING HOME

WHAT?

DON'T LEAVE ME

Total prick. I should break up with him. I waited for Jack and Phil to give them a piece of my mind, but no-one left the building. I felt sick. If I thre up though, I might have a clearer head. Time passed as I recovered. I barged back through the doors and the sight chilled me to the bone. The lobby was empty, still run down with patches on the walls and brown and black stains all over the floors but there was no music, no energy from other people, no sounds of talking and laughter.

"Hello?"

Had I been dreaming? All the other rooms were empty too. It looked like no-one had been in the building for years, but then, probably no-one had been, apart from the party-goers. When I tried the doors in the lobby again they didn't budge. I checked my phone. It was dead. A lonely scrap of paper caught on my shoe. When I picked it up and looked at it my heart almost thudded to a halt and I stopped breathing.

It was a picture of me. My name, age and university printed on the paper and my mum's name and a phone number. "Still missing," it read, "for a year." I inhaled very slowly. Memories began to filter back to me, of a guy with a yellow mohawk and eyes like jewels. Of a girl with green hair and a nosering of black metal and pointed ears. Of wine which tasted like berries and crisps rich with the flavour of soft cheeses or venison or tangy chutney that shouldn't have been found in a sliver of potato.

I felt suddenly, frighteningly sober. I'd read the tales. La Belle Dame Sans Merci. The Sidhe. Annwn. Don't eat of their food. Don't drink their drinks. Be polite. I just thought they were myths. Like the one about Gelert the faithful hound. Or the story about the hairy man who drowned. Or the tales about the giants that crossed the sea to fight a war.

My hand drifted towards the chain around my neck where I still wore a cross in memory of my dad and my fingers curled around the cold iron. I ran up the stairs, footsteps echoing thoughout the abandoned building and broke out onto the roof.

The sun was shining wanly in a dim sky and I could hear birds and traffic and people somewhere down below. I shuffled over the asphalt and spotted a fire escape on the edge of the building. It looked worn down, a ruin of rusty metal but I had to risk it.

When I hit the ground I broke into a run. After a while I had to stop and sucked in deep breaths of crisp morning air, leaning against a billboard plastered with posters for garages and club nights and hardware stores. Then I saw the flyers, stuck up next to the adverts, faded and tagged and forgotten.

My face, Jack's face, Ivy's face, other faces. A jogger passed by on the other side of the road, jogging to the beats in their headphones, counting their steps, jogging to the timing in their breaths. I was holding my breath again. A world away, a car engine stuttered to life. For me time had stopped. Or maybe it had just started again.