Errantry: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand Page A

were no voices, no footsteps, nothing. They were just there, moving closer to us—slowly,” she repeated, and moved her hand up and down, as though calming a cranky child. “That was the creepiest thing, how slowly they just kept coming.”
    “Why didn’t you just run?”
    “Because we couldn’t. You know how kids will all know about something horrible, but they’ll never tell a grown-up? It was like that. We knew we had to find our things before we could go.
    “I found my comb first. It was way over—maybe twenty feet from where I’d seen it fall. I grabbed it and began to run across the turf, looking for the locket and Moira’s pencil. The whole time the moon was rising, and that was horrible too—it was a beautiful clear night, no clouds at all. And the moon was so beautiful, but it just terrified me. I can’t explain it.”
    Jeffrey smiled wryly. “Yeah? How about this: three thirteen-year-old girls in the dark under a full moon, with a very active imagination?”
    “Hush. A few minutes later Moira yelled: she’d found her pencil. She turned and started running back toward the wall, I screamed after her that she had to help us find the locket. She wouldn’t come back. She didn’t go over the wall without us, but she wouldn’t help. I ran over to Ant but she yelled at me to keep searching where I was. I did, I even started heading for the far end of the field, toward the other wall—where the lights were.
    “They were very close now, close to the far wall, I mean. You could see how high up they were, taller than a person. I could hear Moira crying, I looked back and suddenly I saw Ant dive to the ground. She screamed ‘I found it!’ and I could see the chain shining in her hand.
    “And we just turned and hightailed it. I’ve never run so fast in my life. I grabbed Ant’s arm, by the time we got to the wall Moira was already on top and jumping down the other side. I fell and Ant had to help me up, Moira grabbed her and we ran all the way back to the farm and locked the door when we got inside.
    “We looked out the window and the lights were still there. They were there for hours. My uncle had a border collie, we cracked the door to see if she’d hear something and bark but she didn’t. She wouldn’t go outside—we tried to get her to look and she wouldn’t budge.”
    “Did you tell your aunt and uncle?”
    Evelyn shook her head. “No. We stayed in the house that night, in my cousin’s room. It overlooked the moor, so we could watch the lights. After about two hours they began to move back the way they’d come—slowly, it was about another hour before they were gone completely. We went out next morning to see if there was anything there—we took the dog to protect us.”
    “And?”
    “There was nothing. The grass was all beat down, as though someone had been walking over it, but probably that was just us.”
    She fell silent. “Well,” Jeffrey said after a long moment. “It’s certainly a good story.”
    “It’s a true story. Here, wait.”
    She stood and went into the other room, and Jeffrey heard her go upstairs. He crossed to the window and stared out into the night, the dark garden occluded by shadow and runnels of mist, blueish in the dim light cast from the solarium.
    “Look. I still have it.”
    He turned to see Evelyn holding a small round tin. She withdrew a small object and stared at it, placed it back inside and handed him the tin. “My comb. There’s some pictures here too.”
    “That tin.” He stared at the lid, blue enamel with the words ST. AUSTELL SWEETS: FUDGE FROM REAL CORNISH CREAM stamped in gold above the silhouette of what looked like a lighthouse beacon. “It’s just like the one I found, with Anthea’s letters in it.”
    Evelyn nodded. “That’s right. Becca gave one to each of us the day we arrived. The fudge was supposed to last the entire two weeks, and I think we ate it all that first night.”
    He opened the tin and gazed at a bright-red