Errantry: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand

take long. We climbed back over the wall and then down onto the field, at the exact spot where we’d thrown our things.
    “They weren’t there. I knew exactly where the rock was where my comb had landed—the rock was there, but not the comb. Ant’s locket had landed only a few feet past it, and it wasn’t there either. And Moira’s pencil was gone, too.”
    “The wind could have moved them,” said Jeffrey. “Or an animal.”
    “Maybe the wind,” said Evelyn. “Though the whole reason we’d stayed there all day was that there was no wind—it was protected, and warm.”
    “Maybe a bird took it? Don’t some birds like shiny things?”
    “What would a bird do with a pencil? Or a plastic comb?”
    Jeffrey made a face. “Probably you just didn’t see where they fell. You thought you did, in daylight, but everything looks different at night. Especially in moonlight.”
    “I knew where they were.” Evelyn shook her head and reached for the bottle of Armagnac. “Especially my comb. I have that engineer’s eye, I can look at things and keep a very precise picture in my mind. The comb wasn’t where it should have been. And there was no reason for it to be gone, unless . . .”
    “Unless some other kids had seen you and found everything after you left,” said Jeffrey.
    “No.” Evelyn sipped her drink. “We started looking. The moon was coming up—it rose above the hill, and it was very bright. Because it was so cold there was hoarfrost on the grass, and ice in places where the rain had frozen. So all that reflected the moonlight. Everything glittered. It was beautiful, but it was no longer fun—it was scary. None of us was even talking; we just split up and crisscrossed the field, looking for our things.
    “And then Moira said, ‘There’s someone there,’ and pointed. I thought it was someone on the track that led back to the farmhouse—it’s not a proper road, just a rutted path that runs alongside one edge of that old field system. I looked up and yes, there were three people there—three torches, anyway. Flashlights. You couldn’t see who was carrying them, but they were walking slowly along the path. I thought maybe it was my uncle and two of the men who worked with him, coming to tell us it was time to go home. They were walking from the wrong direction, across the moor, but I thought maybe they’d gone out to work on something. So I ran to the left edge of the field and climbed up on the wall.”
    She stopped, glancing out the window at the black garden, and finally turned back. “I could see the three lights from there,” she said. “But the angle was all wrong. They weren’t on the road at all—they were in the next field, up above Ravenwood. And they weren’t flashlights. They were high up in the air, like this—”
    She set down her glass and got to her feet, a bit unsteadily, extended both her arms and mimed holding something in her hands. “Like someone was carrying a pole eight or ten feet high, and there was a light on top of it. Not a flame. Like a ball of light . . .”
    She cupped her hands around an invisible globe the size of a soccer ball. “Like that. White light, sort of foggy. The lights bobbed as they were walking.”
    “Did you see who it was?”
    “No. We couldn’t see anything. And, this is the part that I can’t explain—it just felt bad. Like, horrible. Terrifying.”
    “You thought you’d summoned up whatever it was you’d been playing at.” Jeffrey nodded sympathetically and finished his drink. “It was just marsh gas, Ev. You know that. Will-o’-the-wisp, or whatever you call it here. They must get it all the time out there in the country. Or fog. Or someone just out walking in the moonlight.”
    Evelyn settled back into her armchair. “It wasn’t,” she said. “I’ve seen marsh gas. There was no fog. The moon was so bright you could see every single rock in that field. Whatever it was, we all saw it. And you couldn’t hear anything—there