The bus was late. Half the lights were broken, making pools of shade between the seats. Jenny sat in the front corner, as near to as many other people as she could.
Her phone wouldn't stop chirping. She pulled it out again, ready to tell Harry to back off, and found Amy's message instead.
Jenny looked at the words for a minute. Watched the streetlights flicker past the windows of the bus. She fell so deep into thought she nearly missed her stop, and running to get off only made her temper all the worse.
Amy had acted like a little kid earlier. No, worse – going crazy like that, smashing stuff. Jenny had been too embarrassed to go after her in the end and had just gone straight to work.
What could Tom have been doing to get that reaction? For all Amy was a drama queen Jenny had never seen her be that bad before, and it'd bothered her almost as much as the things they were meant to be discussing – the disappearances, that old man in the weird straw hat.
Hazel had gone, and so apparently had Jack. Steven hadn't come home, and now Amy was saying Jessica was missing as well?
Jenny was still beside the bus stop. She began to walk into town, not really sure of where she wanted to go. Wanting to kill time.
Whatever this thing was – this darkness she'd sensed in Hazel's flat, this character Tom had found on the internet – it was spreading. It was real. Jenny couldn't turn her back on it, no matter how stupid and ungrateful her supposed friends acted.
It was late, but Highburn Place still blazed with light. Shops displayed to uncaring passers-by, and snatches of music floated out between automatic doors.
It was bitterly cold, and Jenny found herself shaking. She needed a new coat. Something solid, normal. Looking for clothes would ground her, help her get her head back in the game before she tried putting up with Amy or Tom.
She headed into the clothes shop from the other day, basking in the warm rush of conditioned air. It was less crowded than before – all the mothers with their pushchairs had gone home for the day, leaving Jenny free to browse. She reached that table of cardigans where she'd run into the manager – they were all piled up neatly again – and picked one up and rubbed it between her fingers, feeling the scratchy thickness of the wool.
"Those'll keep you warm on a day like this," said a voice.
Jenny whirled, half-expecting the manager from before, but this time she found herself talking to an older man – late forties at least, wearing a jaunty hat that threw his face into shadow and hid his eyes.
"They always go fast come winter," he said, pointing to the jumper in Jenny's hands. "Try it on if you like, miss."
"I'm looking for something a bit heavier," Jenny said, putting it down untidily. "A coat, maybe."
She wanted the man to point her away and leave her alone, but instead he said "Come then, I'll show you," and led her across the shop floor, between racks of tights and long lines of spiky jewellery.
"Here," said the man in the hat, stopping beside a stand of jackets and long winter coats. Jenny ran her eye over them, but none seemed lively enough – they were military and double-breasted, too severe a style. She needed something that burst from the stitches, an extension of her back and shoulders.
"I'm okay, thanks," she said when the man still didn't go.
"I never even asked," he said, and smiled. "None of these take your fancy either?"
Jenny shook her head, grudging him further words.
"Then I suppose you'll have to move quickly," said the man, and when Jenny raised an eyebrow at him he added "to keep warm, of course."
"I'll be fine." Jenny readied herself to leave, but to her further annoyance the man followed her halfway to the door. He was wearing a coat, too, despite being indoors – big and brown with buckles and belts, half-hiding his nametag so that she couldn't read it.
"Mind how you go," he said. "It's a harsh thing of a night out there."
"Better than in here," Jenny snapped, and headed back into the square.
No more messages from Amy or Harry. She stood with her phone in her hand and wavered. Boy or girl? Friends or company? Trouble or escape?
Escaping had only made it worse.
She hovered over Amy's number, called. Harry should still be eager enough tomorrow.
As soon as she heard Amy answer, Jenny pressed on with questions. "What do you mean, Jessica's gone?"
"She's um, she's gone like Hazel and Steven and Jack." Amy sounded dead, her voice flat. "I left her alone for a few minutes and they got to her."
"Who's they?" Jenny began to walk with her phone, swerving past people. "I thought Tom was on about a ghost or something? Just one guy?"
"I know. I've seen him too." Amy's words were hoarse, stretched, and listening to them made Jenny want to cough in sympathy. "I don't know though, Jessica said them and she saw more – more than I did."
The flat voice was a defence, Jenny realised. Amy was barely holding herself together.
"Anyway." Amy paused. "I've, um, found something else and I'm going to see my friend Cordelia about it. Do you want to come meet me? She lives over on Bellman's Crescent."
"How do I know you're not going to kick off again?" Jenny had meant that to sound light but it came out with the full force of her feelings behind it.
"I – I won't." Amy swallowed. "That was, erm, something else."
"So what was it?" Jenny had no intention of going anywhere without more answers.
"Tom had been–” Amy's voice broke and Jenny thought she might cry, but anger crept into her tones instead. "That horrible little w-wanker had been – been sending me hatemail. Someone h-had for months and I didn't know who and when I found my stuff on his laptop I knew, you see, I knew."
"Right." Jenny left that alone, started to walk back to the bridge and the Lamber. Bellman's wasn't far from Bell, and she could be there in five minutes. "When should I meet you?"
"Please, as soon as you can." Amy's voice went flat again. "I think this is only going to get worse."
She found Amy waiting outside a large house with attic windows and a tree in the garden. Amy was shivering, her silly green hair blowing in all directions, and Jenny forgot her earlier anger and almost wanted to hug her.
Amy looked up and smiled. "H-hi. I was going to send you the number but I thought you might not see it in the dark."
"Thanks for waiting." Jenny felt a little off-balance. The other girl was almost too calm, nothing like the crying wreck from earlier.
"No, thanks for coming." Amy hugged Jenny without warning, arms tight across her back. "Come on, let's get inside."
"Where is this?" Jenny hesitated halfway up the path. The garden was tidy, neatly cropped and managed with stones laid out around the lawn, and she felt instantly out-of-place.
"My friend Cordelia lives here," Amy said, sounding evasive. "I don't think you've met her before."
Not only that, Jenny knew Amy had never mentioned her. She'd have remembered a name like that.
The door was answered by an older woman, mid-thirties and perfectly dressed and groomed, an apron tucked around her waist. "Hello," she said in motherly tones, then glanced across to Jenny and frowned. "You didn't say you were bringing someone with you."
Jenny disliked this woman immediately.
"This is my friend," Amy started to say but Jenny could speak for herself and stepped forward, taking the woman's hand and shaking it. "Hi, I'm Jennifer." She beamed her best and falsest smile.
"Well the more the merrier." Cordelia – this must be Cordelia – regained her expression and opened the door wide. "Come in one and all, and please just leave your shoes behind the door there."
The place was as intimidating inside as out. Thick rugs, clean cream carpets, polished oak banisters. Jenny kicked her shoes off with as much defiance as she could muster, and found herself and Amy being lead through to a front room nearly the size of her entire flat.
"Would either of you like–” Cordelia began, playing host, but Amy cut straight in. "Please, did yo
u find anything?"
"About the Firebringer story?"
Jenny didn't understand that. "About the what?"
"I said I'd found something else." Amy broke in again. "There's this, um – "
"Let me, Amy." Cordelia took over, going over to the bookcase in the corner and pulling out several volumes with practised confidence. "Oh, and both of you please do have a seat. Let's not be so formal."
Jenny sat awkwardly on the big fluffy sofa, perching forward. "So what is this?"
"There's an old story." Cordelia coughed, opened the first and thinnest book. "It's a local one. About a god once worshipped in this valley, a bearer of light and keeper of secrets."
Jenny could see where this was going. "Like this Lamplighter, right?"
"Lamp-lighter?" Cordelia looked as confused as Jenny felt.
"Look, maybe just let me explain?" Amy was fidgeting with impatience, pulling green hair out of her eyes. "I've got that same book, I already know what it says about the Firebringer, and Tom – that's another friend of ours – found some recent history about lighting failures and electrical faults, and the old public lamplighter. There was a picture, and we've all seen someone who looks like that lurking around town, and people have been going missing where it's been and there were these footprints and Jessica was terrified of the lights and said they brought something with them and I saw that figure at her house and she's–”
"Breathe, Amy," Cordelia advised her.
"– and she's, she's, she's gone and they took her and it's my fault. My fault." Amy gulped, seemed on the verge of disintegration.
"So, wait, let me get this straight." Cordelia frowned. "You've both seen someone dressed like an old lamplighter around town and you think it's the Firebringer legend? Why?"
"Because something's wrong." Jenny finally joined back in. "Haven't you been able to feel it? The lights aren't working properly anywhere, people are going missing, there's shadows–” she cut off there, unable to put words to what she'd sensed in Hazel's room that other night.
"The – the Firebringer was connected with strange fires and disappearances, remember?" Amy chipped in. "They're both local, and so's this – don't you think we'd have heard something in the news if it was happening anywhere else?"
"And because of that you think the things in this book are true?" Cordelia put it down again, looked to Amy and blanked Jenny out. "I know we're both sisters in the Coven, Amy, but this isn't part of our beliefs. The natural balance of the world doesn't admit of evil gods but only evil men, remember?"
"Can't we argue about that later?" Amy's voice was going again. "Look, Cordelia, did you find anything besides that one book or not?"
"As a matter of fact – " Cordelia picked up the next book and Jenny could tell how unbothered she was. She was still in control, still teaching, " – I did. I've got a much rarer text here, some local rituals and practises handed down by one of the old Crooksfield families, the ones living up in Underhow. They don't mention much about the Firebringer–”
"Then why bring it up?" Jenny burst out. She was sick of being marginalised.
"If you'd let me finish." Cordelia talked to her as if she were a child, and Jenny had to fight hard to control her temper. "They do record a ritual connected to the old god. A summoning."
"What does it say?" Amy sat forward, nearly fell out of her chair.
"It says, " Cordelia turned the pages dramatically, enjoying her moment, "that to call forth the Lightbearer, you must take a candle and place it near to many other lights. Light the candle and burn a strand of your own hair in it, and thereby call his name. Keep calling the name until all other lights are out, then finally extinguish the candle."
"His name? Does it say what that name is?" Amy clenched her fists in her lap.
"Wait, hang on." Jenny had to intervene. "Are you thinking seriously about this? This is kid stuff, like pentagrams and Ouija boards. None of it ever does anything."
"Perhaps not without an open mind." Cordelia sat back, superior, and Jenny nearly lost it.
"See," she pleaded to Amy, "this is a waste of time. Whatever weird stuff's going on it won't be about old gods and candles and nonsense like that."
"Then what will it be?" Amy glared back at her, offended, and Jenny realised she'd touched a nerve. So this explained that necklace, and how these two knew each other – Amy really believed. No wonder she'd never talked about it.
Amy was talking to Cordelia again. "But we don't know the name, it isn't anywhere in my book either."
"I'm afraid I can't help you." Cordelia closed the book with an air of finality. "Besides, I don't know how much substance there is to it. A lot of old rituals and superstitions are as worthless as the paper they're written on, but you need a balanced mind before you even try this sort of thing – and you know what I've said about opening yourself up to negative influences, we've agreed before."
"Can't we try it, though? Please?" Amy stood up. "If both of you are here to help me?"
"I don't see the point," Jenny complained. There was a growing gulf inside her head, a blankness. She felt like the world she understood was drifting out of reach.
"I – I don't know what else to do." Amy hung her head.
"You can't do anything without the name, dear." Cordelia got up and walked across to her, put her arms loosely around Amy's shoulders.
Jenny had been thinking about the words of that ritual again. They still didn't make sense, but there was something funny about the wording, kind of oddly pedantic. Like those English lessons she'd used to hate.
"Hang on." She walked over to the book, picked it up without asking permission. "It doesn't say you have to speak any name at all. It says lighting the flame and burning the hair is calling the name–”
– both the others were looking at her, mouths open –
"– doesn't it?"
Twelve
"That doesn't seem like a proper name," Cordelia said, taking the book back from Jenny and looking it over.
"I don't think that's the point." Jenny leaned over, pointed at the words. "This Lamplighter isn't human, right? So why would it have a name you can say?"
"I, um think that sounds right." Amy agreed, to Jenny's surprise. "Besides, we – we don't have many other choices." She looked around the room. "Do you have any spare candles?"
"I'm sorry, no, not here." Cordelia put the book down, folded her arms. "Not in my house. I've got children upstairs, remember?"
"Where then?" Jenny still wasn't convinced by this whole thing, but Cordelia was being precious.
"We'll go to mine, then." Amy sighed as she said at and looked to Cordelia, and Cordelia looked back with an expression that said she had no intention of coming along.
"Amy," said Cordelia, "don't you think this could wait until tomorrow? I've let you come over this late because I know it's important–”
– Jenny didn't know if she was managing to convince herself –
"– but I've got work in the morning, and so have you. Besides, whether or not this Firebringer is real, it'll be safer to try the ritual in daylight. You'll be less open then."
"Are you saying I can't handle it at night?" Amy bristled.
"Wait a minute." Jenny broke back into the conversation. "I don't fancy trying anything at night either." She looked out the window, seeing the bare blackness of the sky.
"I can't do it by myself. Jenny, please." Amy turned to her, pleading.
"Why can't you? You were all sure of yourself a moment ago." Jenny could feel herself being dragged in deeper, and she wasn't comfortable in the least.
"Because–” Amy paused, screwed her face up, looking suddenly ill-at-ease. "I didn't mention before, but I think being alone is when they come for you. Being cut off, I mean. Everyone who's gone missing was kind of, um, abandoned at the time."
"Wait, what now?" Jenny thought about it, and it fit. "Why didn't you say before? People are on their own right now!"
"Like who? We're all here." Amy was bein
g so thick, unless she was deliberately –
"Tom." As Jenny said the name, she saw through Amy completely.
Amy shrugged. "I'm sure he can look after himself."
Jenny however already had her phone out. Tom might be a weird little creep, but he didn't deserve whatever was coming.
Tom had managed to force himself to get up and eat after calling the police, but had soon collapsed back onto the sofa, pulled to his same spot as if by magnets. It was now fully dark outside, but he didn't have the energy to close the curtains. Couldn't be bothered to charge his phone, even while it threatened to shut down. Didn't have the energy to do anything.
The living room was littered with bits of broken laptop, and Tom tried not to look at them.
He was cut off. Who knew what could be happening while he sat here? They could be descending, putting everything together, making contact of all Kinds, and Tom would be left here in the darkness.
His phone cried. Tom looked at it uncaring, saw Jenny's name. Fat lot of good she'd been, bringing lunatics over to his house and running off without so much as an apology.
"hey we realised this thing comes after people on there own be careful"
Tom glared at the screen. Like she knew enough to tell him anything. She'd been wrong about the light – he'd been sitting with it on for ages now – wrong about psycho Amy, probably wrong about Hazel and Steven and all the rest of them.
He remembered Steven's room, still dark and empty upstairs. He'd show her.
Hauling himself off the sofa, Tom headed upstairs. Hall light – on. Landing light – on. Still nothing. He'd stick Steven with the bill when the stupid git got back.
Steven's room looked even darker with the light outside it, doorway soot-black. Tom mentally sneered at Jenny – saying "see look at this" to her imagined face, leaned round the door, felt for the light switch, pressed –
"Hey, man," said Steven.
Tom jumped, but it was just his useless housemate, squinting in the full glare of the lights. Steven was tucked under the covers but still dressed – Tom could see his jacket, the edge of his jeans.
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