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Authors: Ramsey Campbell
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she stood the sign that pointed to AUNTIE HERMIONE’S on the street corner when the shop was open. As she let herself in, the streetlamp outside flickered on against the swarthy sky.
She pulled the tasseled cord inside the doorway, and the shop lit up, the racks of children’s clothes, the crafted toys. When she’d first thought of moving to Wales, to somewhere near her favourite childhood haunts, she’d meant to teach, but while she’d enjoyed her years at training college, teaching practice in a viciously Catholic school near Liverpool had almost given her a breakdown. She would never have expected the children’s clothes she made as therapy to prove so popular—popular enough to let her rent the cottage and the shop. Each year she added a few more lines, though never enough to satisfy Rowan, she thought wryly. It had been Rowan’s idea to order a carton of Halloween masks.
When Hermione parted the lid of the carton and folded back the leaves, a witch’s face sneered up at her. It was grey and deeply wrinkled, and looked as if it would feel like clay. She picked it up by its long sharp chin and hung it in the window, and then she peeled off more layers of the onion of eyeless faces in the carton, green faces with one eye twice the size of the other, skulls with reassuringly artificial teeth. She was sorting out a representative display when a little girl looked in the window.
Hermione gave her a quick smile without really seeing her. The child oughtn’t to be out so late, particularly in just a white dress when the mists were already seeping down the mountains. She selected three masks and picked them up by their elastic, and realised that the little girl hadn’t moved. She turned to call out that the shop was closed, and her fists clenched so violently that the elastic tore free of one mask.
For a moment she thought that the figure outside wasn’t a child but a dwarf with an old woman’s long-chinned face. It was just that the reflection of the witch mask was blotting out the child’s face, and yet the sight made Hermione shrink back, for the child seemed to be peering through the reflected empty sockets. Then the child skipped aside, into the dark beyond the streetlamp.
Hermione made herself stumble to the door and drag it open. The street was deserted as far as she could see. When she ran to the bend, there was no sign of the little girl. She retreated to the shop and locked herself in. She couldn’t have seen what she thought she’d seen, she told herself, fighting to be calm so that she could venture out before it grew much darker. She knew that children liked to make faces, but the child couldn’t really have looked like that. In the moment before the child had dodged out of sight, the eyes staring through the reflection that clung to the window had seemed to have turned outward, staring past either side of the mask.
Chapter Eight
The train from Prestatyn to Chester was crowded, and at first Lance had to stand. People crowded in, shuffling him farther down the car, until he was clinging to a strap above two girls about ten years old. As the swaying of the train swung him towards them, their mother told one to stand up and sat the other on her lap, and stared at Lance until he took the seat. He was clammy and breathless, and now the two girls made him feel as if there were a blaze on either side of him. The doctors were supposed to have shocked those feelings out of him, but even if he no longer wanted to imagine touching little girls, he still felt as if everyone around him thought he did. He closed his eyes and tried not to know where he was, but once the hem of the standing girl’s skirt brushed the back of his hand, and once her bare thigh touched him.
In Chester he sat hunched together until the car emptied, then he trudged out of the station, looking at nobody. He crossed the road into the old town, passed through the gate in the city wall and strolled along the Rows, the shopping walks
She pulled the tasseled cord inside the doorway, and the shop lit up, the racks of children’s clothes, the crafted toys. When she’d first thought of moving to Wales, to somewhere near her favourite childhood haunts, she’d meant to teach, but while she’d enjoyed her years at training college, teaching practice in a viciously Catholic school near Liverpool had almost given her a breakdown. She would never have expected the children’s clothes she made as therapy to prove so popular—popular enough to let her rent the cottage and the shop. Each year she added a few more lines, though never enough to satisfy Rowan, she thought wryly. It had been Rowan’s idea to order a carton of Halloween masks.
When Hermione parted the lid of the carton and folded back the leaves, a witch’s face sneered up at her. It was grey and deeply wrinkled, and looked as if it would feel like clay. She picked it up by its long sharp chin and hung it in the window, and then she peeled off more layers of the onion of eyeless faces in the carton, green faces with one eye twice the size of the other, skulls with reassuringly artificial teeth. She was sorting out a representative display when a little girl looked in the window.
Hermione gave her a quick smile without really seeing her. The child oughtn’t to be out so late, particularly in just a white dress when the mists were already seeping down the mountains. She selected three masks and picked them up by their elastic, and realised that the little girl hadn’t moved. She turned to call out that the shop was closed, and her fists clenched so violently that the elastic tore free of one mask.
For a moment she thought that the figure outside wasn’t a child but a dwarf with an old woman’s long-chinned face. It was just that the reflection of the witch mask was blotting out the child’s face, and yet the sight made Hermione shrink back, for the child seemed to be peering through the reflected empty sockets. Then the child skipped aside, into the dark beyond the streetlamp.
Hermione made herself stumble to the door and drag it open. The street was deserted as far as she could see. When she ran to the bend, there was no sign of the little girl. She retreated to the shop and locked herself in. She couldn’t have seen what she thought she’d seen, she told herself, fighting to be calm so that she could venture out before it grew much darker. She knew that children liked to make faces, but the child couldn’t really have looked like that. In the moment before the child had dodged out of sight, the eyes staring through the reflection that clung to the window had seemed to have turned outward, staring past either side of the mask.
Chapter Eight
The train from Prestatyn to Chester was crowded, and at first Lance had to stand. People crowded in, shuffling him farther down the car, until he was clinging to a strap above two girls about ten years old. As the swaying of the train swung him towards them, their mother told one to stand up and sat the other on her lap, and stared at Lance until he took the seat. He was clammy and breathless, and now the two girls made him feel as if there were a blaze on either side of him. The doctors were supposed to have shocked those feelings out of him, but even if he no longer wanted to imagine touching little girls, he still felt as if everyone around him thought he did. He closed his eyes and tried not to know where he was, but once the hem of the standing girl’s skirt brushed the back of his hand, and once her bare thigh touched him.
In Chester he sat hunched together until the car emptied, then he trudged out of the station, looking at nobody. He crossed the road into the old town, passed through the gate in the city wall and strolled along the Rows, the shopping walks
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