The Kind Folk by Ramsey Campbell

Author:Ramsey Campbell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-08-05T21:00:00+00:00

IT RETURNS

As soon as Luke reaches the car he retrieves the journal from the boot and dumps it on the bonnet. Beyond the car park an express train rushes like a gale through the station, but around him the air is as still as the deserted sky appears to be. A woman who has just parked her car gives him a long look, surely only because she wonders what the ledger may contain, and then she hurries onto the enclosed bridge across the tracks. "Come and see," Luke is almost maddened enough to shout after her. "See if you can see what's here." He might be worse than distressed if anybody did, and he crouches over the journal. He only wishes he didn't have to read it himself.

Were Terence's summaries of fairy tales meant to convey secrets or to keep them? Here's an entry Luke overlooked—HANDS GET MORE POWERFUL WHEN MOON DOES—and he hopes it was simply inspired by the piece of ironwork Terence took home. He leafs through the journal so fast that he dislodges a pressed flower. He could fancy that it was an insect he disturbed; the desiccated twigs on either side of the withered stem appear to twitch as the souvenir drops to the concrete. Before he can examine it, not that he has much desire to, it vanishes under the car. If it was meant to mark an entry, that was LIKE DREAMS or NOT MY DREAMS. Terence didn't mention dreams until he brought the sculpted face home from John Strong's house, after which he learned about the papers in the library and, Luke deduces, copied something from them. The next entry is SAYS IT BRINGS BLESSING. Luke would be happy to leave this uninterpreted, along with JUST LIKE PRAYING. He turns the pages faster but can't avoid reading. FREDA RADIENT. LIT FROM INSIDE. BIGGER AND BRIGHTER. LUCIUS + LUCIA COME FROM LIGHT. LUCAS HERE.

He feels watched, found out, although he's alone in the car park. No face has dodged out of sight into the enclosed bridge; the impression didn't even resemble much that he would call a face. Down on the tracks a stationary train ticks like a clock if not a bomb. He yearns to be with Sophie, but he's afraid she will sense a change in him before he can grasp it himself. Whatever nearly surfaced in his childhood feels much closer now: some sort of explosion of his mind. He slams the ledger so hard that he might be trying to crush all its significance out of existence. He's tempted to consign it to the nearest bin, except that the notion that someone might read it fills him with undefined shame. He drops it in the boot, and as he slams the lid his mobile begins to sing the song that was Terence's secret joke.

Luke snatches out the phone and sees Sophie's number. His finger hovers over the keypad as he realises he has no idea what to say to her.

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