William Royden

He tried in vain to remember the details of another rumor that had floated around Robinson, one from our elementary school days.

Something about a baby that had been found burned beyond recognition at St.

Martin's Church and buried in town, never having been accurately identified.

I vaguely remembered what he was talking about.

I left Steve's house eventually after asking him to visit me soon.

On the way down the street, his parents passed me in their car coming home.

They got out to speak to me.

They had seemed very old when I'd known them as a teenager, and now they were quite elderly.

They told me that, just a few weeks before, Steve had been found wandering in Mount Halcyon Cemetery, having heard voices recently, strange female voices, every day at about dawn, telling him to go there and make sure that certain graves weren't visited or even touched.

They'd begun to worry about him again.

They weren't sure what sort of treatment he was going to need next.

I left them and went slowly back to the park on Lord Street.

There I found Cording, sitting on the ground, legs crossed, smoking and looking out over the road.

His clothes were streaked with dirt, and there was a nasty scratch on the back of his right hand.

The shovel was gone, but in one hand he now held the dirty white sheet that Mr. Coakland's son had with him on the bench.

Without a word to me, he gestured for me to start the camera again.

He got to his feet, and the second part of our day in Robinsong began.

Things went from bad to nightmarish very quickly.

We walked.

I remember going past all the minor landmarks of Robinsong that I used to think nothing of but now seemed sinister to me.