IT CAN COME THROUGH THE WALL.
She darted forward, and then glared at him.
VERY WELL. FETCH THE CHILD. I THINK WE SHOULD LEAVE HERE. A thought struck him. He brightened up a little bit. WE DO HAVE SOME TIME. WHAT IS THE HOUR?
“I don’t know. You go around stopping the clocks the whole time.”
BUT IT IS NOT YET MIDNIGHT?
“I shouldn’t think it’s more than a quarter past eleven.”
THEN WE HAVE THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR.
“How can you be sure?”
BECAUSE OF DRAMA, MISS FLITWORTH. THE KIND OF DEATH WHO POSES AGAINST THE SKYLINE AND GETS LIT UP BY LIGHTNING FLASHES, said Bill Door, disapprovingly, DOESN’T TURN UP AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY PAST ELEVEN IF HE CAN POSSIBLY TURN UP AT MIDNIGHT.
She nodded, white-faced, and disappeared upstairs. After a minute or two she returned, with Sal wrapped up in a blanket.
“Still fast asleep,” she said.
THAT’S NOT SLEEP.
The rain had stopped, but the storm still marched around the hills. The air sizzled, still seemed oven-hot.
Bill Door led the way past the henhouse, where Cyril and his elderly harem were crouched back in the darkness, all trying to occupy the same few inches of perch.
There was a pale green glow hovering around the farmhouse chimney.
“We call that Mother Carey’s Fire,” said Miss Flitworth. “It’s an omen.”
AN OMEN OF WHAT?
“What? Oh, don’t ask me. Just an omen, I suppose. Just basic omenery. Where are we going?”
INTO THE TOWN.
“To be near the scythe?”
YES.
He disappeared into the barn. After a while he came out leading Binky, saddled and harnessed. He mounted up, then leaned down and pulled both her and the sleeping child onto the horse in front of him.
IF I’M WRONG, he added, THIS HORSE WILL TAKE YOU WHEREVER YOU WANT TO GO.
“I shan’t want to go anywhere except back home!”
WHEREVER.
Binky broke into a trot as they turned onto the road to the town. Wind blew the leaves off the trees, which tumbled past them and on up the road. The occasional flash of lightning still hissed across the sky.
Miss Flitworth looked at the hill beyond the farm.
“Bill—”
I KNOW.
“—it’s there again—”