Dead Flesh

thought.

“It’s like the world has been pushed off course,” he said, dropping the cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with his boot. “The world that we have come back to is different from the one we left behind when we went down into The Hollows. Something has changed — something happened.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Not everything has changed.”

“Isidor told me about London now being called Linden,” I told him.

“It gets better than that,” he half-smirked, but I could see that look of concern again behind his eyes. “Houston, Texas? Or Euston, Texas as it’s now known. ‘Euston, we have a problem.’ Sounds the same, but not quite.”

“So what do you think happened while we were away?” I asked.

“Perhaps nothing changed while we were away,” he said, fixing me with a stare. “Perhaps we’ve come back to a different world, one that has been pushed sideways a little.”

“But how come no one else has noticed the changes?” I asked him. “I mean, people would notice if Disneyland just vanished, wouldn’t they?”

“Not if it was never here in the first place,” he said, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Not if it had always been this Drizzle dude.”

“You said Grizzel before,” I reminded him.

“Whatever! Grizzel or Drizzle — it all amounts to the same thing,” he said. “I don’t think the humans have ever known any different.”

“But why aren’t the changes bigger?”

“I think the capital of England suddenly having a new name is a pretty big deal,” he said, looking at me.

“No, I don’t mean like that,” I sighed. “I mean things could be completely different instead of changing a few place names, songs, books, and movies. Whole continents could have changed, Kings and Queens could be different, and landscapes could have changed.”

“Perhaps they have,” he said thoughtfully. “We haven’t been the most sociable of people since coming back from the dead. We haven’t even stuck our noses beyond the front gate. There could be a whole new world waiting on the other side of those giant walls.”

“I don’t think so,” I told him. “Isidor and Kayla have been bringing me newspapers and I’ve been on the net. I would have noticed any big changes like that — they would have noticed, too. The changes that we’re talking about are subtle. It’s like coming back from holiday and finding that the furniture has been moved slightly and a few new pots and pans have been added to the cupboards. It’s the same house, in the same street, but stuff has been pushed from where you left it.”

Then, taking me by the hand, Potter said, “let me show you something. I’ve got a subtle change to show you,” and he set off through the trees.

Chapter Seven

Kiera

Potter led me by the hand through the woods. Pale shards of wintry sun cut through the leafy overhead canopy and the smell of the pine needles smelt fresh and sweet. Our walk through the woods was quiet, the only sound was the odd squawk from a crow as we startled it by our progress.

We walked hand in hand and for the first time since returning from the dead and back to the manor, it felt as if we were a real couple taking a stroll on a winter’s afternoon. But to think of this only made me long for what we could have had if we had met someplace else other than the Ragged Cove — in another time surrounded by a different set of circumstances.

The treeline ahead began to thin, the gaps between them growing bigger. Potter led me out into the clearing where the summerhouse stood.

“Notice anything different?” Potter almost seemed to whisper. “Can you see anything that has been pushed?”

Just as I had remembered it, the summerhouse was a small, squat building, painted white, which stood on a raised wooden platform with a small set of steps leading up to its wooden front door. But there was something different — something had been pushed into place that hadn’t been there before. There was a statue. Letting go of Potter’s hand, I stepped into the clearing and walked slowly towards it. To see the statue just standing there made me feel uneasy — on edge — and if I still had a heart, I knew that it would be quickening in my chest.

I came to rest before it. It was made of grey coloured stone and even though its face was featureless, I knew that it was a statue of a girl. She was bent forward slightly and had her fingers laced together as if in prayer. To look at her reminded me of the many statues of St. Bernadette I had seen. Whoever had sculpted this life-sized statue of the girl had gone to tremendous detail. Her hair looked so real that at any moment, I thought it might just flutter back from her shoulders. She was dressed in what looked like a shroud, which came to rest against her marble-looking toes. I say marble as her face, hands, and feet were covered in the faintest of cracks. To look at her was, in some freaky way, like looking back at my own reflection as I stood alone before the mirror in my room, studying the cracks and lines in my naked flesh.

“Freaky, don’t you think?” Potter asked.

I gasped and spun around, unaware that he had joined me by the statue.

“Where did it come from?” I breathed. “Who put it here?”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” he said, staring at the statue. “It wasn’t here before. I should know — I spent long enough hobbling around these grounds like the bleeding Hunchback of Notre Dame when I was disguised as Marshall. Remember that?”

“How could I forget,” I half-smiled, unable to take my eyes from the statue of the girl.“Why do you think its here?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Potter said. “You’re the Miss Marple around here, I was hoping you might be able to do your thing — you know — look for bent-over blades of grass and God knows what else it is that you can see.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, which believe it or not was quite refreshing as it was more like the Potter I had fallen in love with, I turned to him and said, “Although the statue looks ancient, it hasn’t been here long, which is a curious thing.”

“How curious?” he asked me and smiled, as if he too were enjoying seeing that glimmer of my old self reappearing.

“Because we’ve been here six weeks, okay,” I started, feeling that buzz I got when I had a problem to solve. “The grass is about four inches long, but none of it has grown up and over the toes of the statue, indicating that it was placed here recently. But how could that have happened? I mean this is made of solid stone, it’s not something that one person could have thrown over the wall, then carried so deep into the woods and placed here.”

“Maybe more than just one person brought it here,” he said. “What makes you think that it was carried here by just one person?”

I knelt down, and brushing my fingertips over the grass, I said, “can’t you see the faint impressions of where the grass has been disturbed? They are almost gone, but they are still just visible if you look for them. There are only one set of footprints.”

“Maybe this person worked out a lot,” he half-joked.

“No one carried it here,” I told him, standing up again as I had seen enough. “The footprints would have been deeper if someone had carried it here from the sheer weight of it in their arms.

“So what are you saying?” Potter asked, looking at me like I had all the answers written down somewhere.

I pointed down at the faint footprints that led up to the statue and said, “The tracks only lead up to the statue, they don’t lead away. Whoever it was never left this spot.”

“So where is this person now?” Potter asked me, searching my eyes with his.