Dark Sings A Distant Herald: A Christmas Story On Holding Back the British Twilight

By C. Talmadge Mitchell

Britain in the near future is facing the sunset feared since the chaos of the post-WWII years, to include within the very borders of the home isles. An experimental opportunity zone in the heart of the Midlands is increasingly repressive and separatist. Those living in the zone have nearly lost what it means to be British.


John and Elsa, two young dissenters, lead a small group to challenge the status quo and strike out on a journey to find a secret celebration. They are pursued by zealous zone enforcers, threatened by ethereal and dangerous characters, captured by lost souls, and forced to endure obstacles of uncertainty, adversity, betrayal, and disappointment.


In this first book of the Distant Herald series, let the storyteller take you on a fast-paced journey in search of lost traditions, misplaced identity, new friendships, and alternatives to the gathering twilight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483530123

Book preview

Epilogue

Chapter One

The Storyteller Visits

A wispy winter’s pre-dusk dimness was settling its gentle coat over the East of England, just on the western edge of the Fens, as only a tease of the flavor of a rare snow hung in the cold air. The sky was of tarnished silver, seeming to hang low above the bare treetops lining a nearly deserted stretch of country road.

As the waning, muted light struggled to maintain its hold on the landscape along that nearly deserted road, a road that had survived legions of bold invaders by speeding England’s bravest to her moral bulwarks over the centuries, other, subtler forces threatened the very heart of the empire. An empire, though greatly diminished in earthly evidence, that continued to burn within the hearts of the British collective.

That same road was now used to carry another flavor of defender of the realm. One who used as his sword the power of the very language that had carried Britain to all corners of the globe and, then, over time, had brought her and her empire’s offspring back to the isles, back to the source, and now found her shivering in the twilight that all great peoples have faced over man’s short history.

Along that darkening road, near a remote junction somewhere due east of the old A-1 motorway, a family of four, gathered closely together for added warmth, huddled by a small, apparently disabled car at a lay-by, waiting for a particular car to pass. The young family did not know the car they waited for in the cold, only that they would have a few seconds to signal the unknown car that the local network had determined that it would be safe for the travelers to turn into the village just beyond the lay-by. The father knew that the car would spot them first, flash its headlamps three times, two short and one long, and the father and son were to open their coats briefly to reveal crisp white shirts, thereby signaling the car, which would then take the immediate next turn opposite where the family stood waiting in the cold air.

While the family waited, that same chilled air was rushing in through the partially opened passenger window of that speeding, but only just, unknown car negotiating the twists and turns of that same secondary carriageway somewhere north of old Cambridge.

The older of the rushing car’s two occupants sat in the cramped passenger’s seat and quietly breathed in the biting air. The faint hint of snow caused a bent smile to break out on the man’s stern, age-weathered face, and seemed to chase away the gloom of the evening that had been gathering in his bushy brow since the two had begun their trek several hours earlier, far to the north.

The younger of the two men maintained a keen focus on the darkening road, only once in a while stealing a quick glance at his esteemed human cargo. The younger man, dressed smartly in what would have passed for a driver’s kit in earlier days, had driven the older gentleman for nearly two years, but had only spoken a few deferential sentences in all that time. The younger man was not necessarily afraid of the older man, but was afraid of not having words to say that would be of interest to his grandmother’s eldest brother and one of the most respected voices of the message.

Also, the less the younger man interacted with the older man, the less information the younger man felt he could reveal to the authorities if such a fateful day were to disrupt their travels.

I was only a boy then, the old man suddenly spoke out the open window to no one in particular.

The old man’s deep voice was smooth, full of cautious passion and studied cadence. A voice, with a hint of something foreign, that had seen much in its owner’s long life. Within the old man’s world, which was as fragile as the tease of the snow on the evening’s wind, it was also a voice that wanted to live a little longer.

The younger man started at the sudden words, but kept a steady hand on the wheel and the other on the gear lever.

Sir?

The young driver had asked, with the continued deferential air of a student to a favored headmaster, without turning his head as the lane he was seeking was hidden by a bend further along the road, with the expected signaling team at some unknown sidetrack just before the lane. His youthful voice was crisp, to the point. An old style English accountant’s voice, the older man thought as he smiled in return.

Snow. Glorious, white snow. Quite cold, and oddly fluffy that year.

The old man, brushing aside the stray silver locks that whipped around his face, turned his head to look over at the driver. He stared at the younger man long and hard. Even though the driver was his sister’s grandson, the old man could never be too careful, even after all the months the two had spent on trips crisscrossing the English countryside.

Snow. Back in that odd winter years ago. Before the current troubles. Quite fun, if I recall correctly.

The sudden memory of that long ago British snow seemed to erase years on the old man’s face as he took another deep breath.

The family, sir.

The younger man’s voice brought the older man’s focus back to the present.

Yes?

The family, sir. Just there.

The old man looked back and forth along the road and, seeing no other cars near, nodded, almost too late, for the driver to flash his headlamps.

When the family saw the small car’s headlamps give the signal, the father and son immediately opened their coats, briefly revealing the two white shirts, glaring bright white in the flash of the headlamps. As the car sped by, the father and son bundled up again, and, as planned, would continue to stand in the cold for another quarter hour before miraculously repairing their own car. The family would then drive back to their own village, far from the place where they had directed the small car, fulfilling the father’s promise to an old friend just after Eid many weeks before.

As the two men passed the family, the old man caught a glimpse of the mother’s face, then the father’s.

The mother had a strong face. Middle-Eastern or possibly Asian. Revealing a hint of mixed excitement and hope, thought the old man.

A parting glance at the husband’s face revealed a proud man of similar origin, with eyes clear and head straight, fulfilling his small but critical part in a much larger canvas that stretched from the Fens to the West.

Interrupting the old man’s thoughts, the driver applied the brakes a little too quickly as the turn was into a nearly hidden lane. The driver quickly redeemed himself by managing to smooth out their turning without mishap.

As the car rounded the first hedge-shrouded curve in the narrow road before them, the old man placed his right hand on the driver’s left just as the driver was about to put the car into higher gear.

No. Just let her roll for a bit, then stop near the Sad Butchers.

The driver, his nervousness towards his cargo finally showing through, jerked his hand off of the gear lever and let the car roll about two thirds the length of the visible road. He then pulled the small black car over, just opposite the Butchers, a large, late eighteenth century public house that had seen much better days. In fact, as the headlamps washed over the old structure, the young man realized that the pub had probably been closed for some years. Sadly, not an unusual sight in the small villages that lined the edges of the zone.

Setting the hand brake, the young man sat quietly, staring straight ahead. As usual, he waited for the old man’s next instruction. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the elderly man who was also sitting quietly, seeming to be content, eyes half closed, listening to the evening wind lapping at the open window.

Finally, after what seemed many minutes, the old man turned to the driver and gave him brief instructions.

The younger man was to drive back to the city they had just left, wait at the usual pub and return by a separate route to the other end of the village that lay before them and collect the old man between midnight and one in the morning.

You know what to do if I’m not there.

Although the comment was expected, the finality in the old man’s voice shook the younger man to his core. During the many months that he had been driving his older grand uncle out to the villages along the edge of transition zone, he had often wondered if each trip was to be the last.

Glancing at the old man, the driver saw that the fire in the older man’s grey-blue eyes was still there. A good sign.

The young man then began to get out of the car to assist the older man, but the old man gripped his arm and pulled him back into the driver’s seat.

No need to give any of the locals cause to think I am anything more than an accidental passenger.

Gathering up his small, dark tan rucksack, the old man pulled his heavy, dark coat tighter, donned a ragged Yorkshire style cap that appeared seemingly from nowhere, and, slowly, using the care of all older men who strive to avoid injury before their dotage, exited the car, closing the door with a quiet thump. So quiet that the sound did not even bounce off the shuttered houses opposite the closed Butchers.

Right, then.

As if on cue, the small car pulled away and, turning around in the wider part of lane, headed back to the city. The young driver stared straight ahead as the car passed the old man.

As the sound of the car faded into the road behind him, the old man took a moment, but only a moment, to ensure he had his bearings. Looking across the road at the Butchers, he allowed himself a bit of a nostalgic sigh.

Closed nearly ten years now, according to his associates still in the village. Sad Butchers, the owner had started calling it after the imposition of a string of restrictions on bars and restaurants by the transition zone authorities years before. Even with all the restrictions that would eventually close more than half of the free houses in the zone, the place had been quite the hotbed of resentment. Many a long night had been killed by the aging clientele in the fantasy planning of how they would someday bring the real England back to the village. Sadly, as the older generation had passed on, many of the younger had reduced regular pub visits. Many younger residents also had emigrated to the south and north, which drastically reduced pub visitors. After the Butchers’ feisty owner had prematurely passed on, his children had finally closed the money-losing tradition and had moved away to the north themselves.

Squinting at the sign in the drawing dusk, the old man could just make out the word Happy in faded darker paint under the protest name.

Shaking off memories of long ago times in that old pub, the visiting man straightened up, threw his pack carefully over his left shoulder, and began the walk he always preferred to take before his sessions.

The solitary walks allowed the old man to frame the session in his mind and also allowed him to get a better understanding of the dynamics of the village as he strolled to the meeting place. He would then add to and mentally compare with the reports his team received from across the zone on the smaller towns and villages. The larger cities were more complex, so those were categorized by neighborhoods.

Walking away from the Butchers along the curve of the narrow lane, the old man gazed over the darkening houses. Some were lit with a few welcoming lights here and there. Most were still dark in the early evening, many with the typical signs of absent owners or, as in more and more cases, telltale signs of long abandonment by their owners.

The trees, gardens, and shrubs told the old man much of how a village was fairing under the zone authorities. As a village would succumb to population flight and, with so few of the new electorate taking up residence in the smaller villages, preferring the larger towns and cities for their urban flavor and the stronger zone authorities presence, the gardens were usually the first to go. Untended gardens were followed by untamed shrubbery and, after a few years, untrimmed and unruly trees encroached on the forgotten homes.

The few gardens that were maintained in the classic British style were truly the bright spots in the pressing gloom that hung over the countryside. The old man always managed to find a few small gardens that were still being trimmed and, at least locally, shown during the rare garden show. Such remaining stately gardens, regardless of size, were heartening testaments to the resilience of the people, even as the older couples, who typically maintained such windows into the old English soul, were dying off.

The well kept gardens and traditionally finely trimmed shrubs and trees that had embraced the cottages along the lanes and roads of most villages before the transition were rare sights years into the zone’s era. Civic pride and not a few local town fathers (and mothers) traditionally had ensured such plantings were always in top form. As the transition had progressed, and more and more people had chosen to emigrate, the fine gardens and neatly trimmed shrubs and trees had slowly, almost reluctantly, returned to a wilder and less orderly state.

As the old man followed the curve of the road towards the south, he strained his neck to see over the walls and gates to glimpse what he hoped each time would be signs of well-manicured grounds. Peering over one high wall, he heard before he saw his first encounter of the evening.

Pausing in mid-stride, the old man stepped away from the lane and melted into the shadow of an old wall arch which fronted one of the long abandoned homes as evidenced by wild tree limbs which extended far into the lane, something that would have never happened in the traditional English villages of his youth. In the darkness of the wall arch, the old man waited for the footsteps he had detected, if only faintly, to grow louder.

The sound was to his left, he realized, as the steps finally broke clear into the quiet street.

Tap, tap, rap, tap. Tap, tap, rap, tap.

The old man smiled. The approaching owner of the odd cadence seemed to have one weak leg, probably the left rear leg.

The evening’s stroller, older by far than any wild boar the old man had seen in years, paused halfway through a concealed break in the hedgerow a few yards to the left and forward of the old man’s wall arch. The well-worn and heavily scarred head of the old boar stared out at the old man, the beast’s yellow hued, red laced black eyes glinting in the dim light coming from the next house just up the lane.

Snorting once in a dismissal of the human, the mammoth, yet oddly graceful beast then slowly trotted his elongated body into the lane, turned his battered, scarred face towards the night traveler and, seeming to sense that they were both a dying breed, appeared to nod briefly in salute. The dark brown beast, nearly black in the low light of evening, then turned and, without looking back, trotted off into the darkness beyond the end of the opposite wall where there seemed to be a path into another hedgerow.

The old man smiled as the receding backside of the beast melted into the shadows before him while the sounds of the beast's hooves ricocheted softly off the walls curving along the otherwise quiet lane.

No doubt remnants of the grand Tolly-Myron protest, the old man thought, his mind returning once again to the past, the smile frozen on his face as he remembered, waiting in the shadows for the boar to be well on his way.

The Tolly-Myron protest had been only one of many, but the shear brazenness of the protest and its long-term impact had ensured a dubious enshrinement of the perpetrators and the farmer accused of leading it.

Several years into the transition, pork and mutton had been systematically withdrawn from stores. Democratically, of course. While health concerns after so many issues from artificial hormones and genetic tampering had been the main culprits, the new leadership also had its own ideas about how the land should be utilized and large animal farms had been challenged early in the zone’s beginnings, especially when the zone authorities had begun to focus on consolidating lands that had been in private hands into zone-managed estates. If the farmers could not sell their products, the logic had been, they would then turn to other farming.

All had seemed to be going smoothly for the new authorities until one late autumn evening when old Tolly-Myron, a sixth generation boar and sheep farmer in the west, had decided to create a small protest before shipping his last herds off to slaughter or, if he could find a buyer, to the few farms still viable in the south.

On that long ago evening, an already well oiled Tolly-Myron and a number of conspiratorial friends made the rounds of a slew of pubs from the Teddy Morris up Stamford way all the way to Cromwell’s Boot near Ely, gathering a growing following as they drank. The group, oddly well-dressed, quite polite and attuned to the decorum of a proper English mob, then set about releasing as many of the penned and farm-raised boar and their sheep brethren in the Midlands and Cambridgeshire as they could before their beer ran out and the authorities finally cornered them.

After several days of mischief, the zone authorities, backed up in those early days by the outside constables, finally cornered Tolly-Myron and his inebriated cronies in an old barn near the old Bailey farm just north of old ‘Oundle. A bit beyond the capacity to resist, Tolly-Myron and his merry band of accountants, framers, clerks, barristers and other otherwise upstanding citizens were arrested, charged with public disorderliness and, after paying the heavy fines, invited to depart the zone for safer, more pork and sheep friendly regions to the south. The Tolly-Myron lands and many others were folded into government-controlled farms, and zone officials issued an outright ban on pork and sheep products in anger at the civil disobedience.

The legacy survivors (the boar, as the sheep simply had kept returning to their pens upon release) of Tolly-Myron's band of short-lived agricultural insurgents had gone feral very quickly and had been giving the local authorities headaches for years. For, even though the British are quite fond of their pork, ham, bacon, and sausage, an unspoken bond had grown between the sight of a free roaming boar returned to the wild and the longing feelings to do the same on the part of many folks in the transition zone. So, other than what products were smuggled in (often by the very overlords who had pushed the ban), most folks simply went without and even found time to feed the boar during the winter months, hiding such indiscretions from the authorities.

For purely humane reasons, according to the zone authorities, a short boar hunt was conducted every few years, but only a few licenses were given. The zone authorities used the hunt as a political favor rally, capped by an exclusive, invitation-only boar roast. The details were always kept under close guard until the actual two-day hunt commenced, to discourage any protestors.

A side benefit of the wild boars running free about the transition zone had been the development of a vast series of boar trails threading through the brush around many towns and even, during the dry times, through the Fens wetlands. These secret pathways served the region’s children as parent-free routes for play and, later, as escape routes for refugees from the more repressive zone that was to develop.

Young children from east of Ely to well west of Coventry all grew up using those trails as their way of moving between the world of a child's make believe and the ever harsher and increasingly starker world of the day-to-day reality of living in one's zone controlled village or town.

Moving out of his shadowed arch, the old man shook off the memories, bade the aging boar a silent farewell, promised to drink one for the Tolly-Myron protesters at the next opportunity, and continued his stroll towards the center of the village.

As he briskly passed several lanes, the old man counted silently to himself the number of houses that seemed to be shuttered and darkened since his last visit two years before.

Passing a sharp bend in the main street that led to the village common, the old man noticed with some sadness that the flat-top, nearly cylindrical tree he had marveled at since his childhood vacations was now sprouting untrimmed branches, giving the formerly regal bush the look of a poorly cut punk hairdo.

Our country’s legacy, the old man murmured as he nodded to the memory of the shrub’s former glory.

As the village square came into view two hundred feet distant, the old man kept his pace steady. Not too fast and not too slow. He cleared his mind of all memories and told himself that he was simply a local grandfather out for an early evening stroll.

The careful, unrushed pace was more for the ever-present cameras than for the few locals he might encounter. Each little town had at least one and sometimes several cameras, typically located in the village common to capture the routine comings and goings of the local traffic. The cameras could also capture stray dogs, wandering itinerants, and even the locals simply going about their business. The old man no longer feared the cameras, but he did respect them and the watchers. Even though most of the watchers of the current day were lazy bureaucrats who had gained their jobs through favors, a few of the central control offices still retained older officers who remembered the early days of the transition. The old man knew that those men, for they were rarely women, were loaned around to different counties and could randomly be on watch any given day.

Coming into the open square, the old man, taking care to not glance at the camera perched on a green pole just off the common, but also to not turn away from it, smiled as he encountered what appeared to be a local farmer approaching from the lane just below the square to the old man’s right. With fewer houses crowding out the waning light, the openness of the square and the light of the tall streetlamps allowed the visitor to see the local man’s face and, most importantly, his eyes.

The old man had survived more than one close call by knowing when the eyes were true, or if they were full of poorly hidden deceit, ready to turn in anyone who was different.

The approaching man had true eyes. Tired eyes, yes. But the eyes of a man who had found peace with his lot in life, yet was ready to support a righteous cause if ever called. Probably had spent time in one of the uniformed services in his younger days, the old man thought as they exchanged greetings.

Good evening, sir.

The farmer spoke in the accent of the area, with only a hint of the suspicion common these days, thought the old man. The farmer’s clothes, as with most clothing in the transition areas, was getting on a bit, but the old man could see that the repairs had been done with a steady hand and the visible embroidered patches betrayed a loving hand behind the old farmer.

Yes, a grand evening, sir.

The old man allowed himself to smile at the barest hint of a twinkle of merriment that briefly appeared in the farmer’s eyes as he passed by.

He knows why I am here, the old man thought, daring not to turn as they were both in range of the camera.

Not surprising. Most of the village elders would have been part of the local committee on cultural memory and would have known someone was coming in. The committees never knew the exact date, nor did they know the name of the visitor, but they did know a few things and, over the years, a few trusted members would know the visitor, if only by the slight variances in the name he gave each time.

The old man passed the village store, just to the right, which seemed too quiet.

Across the square, directly opposite the store, stood a sagging, yet picturesque pub and inn that appeared to be open. Even with the absence of alcohol on most nights, a small number of the pubs around the zone had made a go if it as mainly restaurants and meeting houses, and generally continued to serve as an extension of the homes of those who had remained. Yet many, like the Sad Butchers, had closed once the owners had passed, or, becoming frustrated, had emigrated to the south or north. The visitor knew the pub across the square from his younger days.

The old man mentally noted the few cars in the square before he decided whether to head straight for the pub’s front door. While still a bit dangerous, since even the most welcoming of the public houses might hold a dormant informer, the visitor had to spend some time in a public space to allow the local leadership to gather up the night’s participants and send them to the meeting place, quietly and without fanfare.

From the sporadic lights in the windows around the square, the old man guessed a couple of other houses at the very heart of the village had also been recently abandoned. Possibly, yet more unlikely, the owners were away during the winter season. Of the cars, he saw only two small imports standing, engines off, near the little covered gazebo that had served as the village celebratory gathering place for at least a century. Another, an older British model, was parked opposite where he stood.

The old man stepped into the shadow of the gazebo’s overhang and surveyed the little village from his youth.

Decades before, he and his sister had spent his summers and some of his longer winter breaks with his mother’s parents, whose family had called the village home for many generations. He had always loved the place, nestled just far enough away from London to be secluded. The village snuggled up beside a slow moving river, surrounded by forests, meadows, farms, and a few other villages.

Thinking of his younger days caused the visitor to recall the hint of snow and the time, a number of years before the transition really became apparent to the public and authorities alike, when he had been visiting over a long holiday break and the entire countryside had shut down from the worst snow storm in a generation at that time. He and his chums had made clumsy snowmen, had slid down the slopes on anything that could serve as a sled, had created jumbled snow forts and had attempted to have snowball battles even though nearly all the kids had never seen such levels of snow in their short lives.

It was in that very square that the old man had thrown a few snowballs at some visiting Americans. He had been too shy at the time to ask where in America they had been from, but a couple of the men had been game enough to exchange a few snowballs with him. One was particularly accurate, betraying a childhood in some wintry clime.

Yet again shaking off the old memories, the visitor stepped out of the shadows and, nodding to the old copper and stone monument to a long gone village leader, moved across the road to the welcoming glow of the pub.

Pausing briefly at the main door, the old man surveyed the interior through the ancient, wavy glass and noted the shapes of the few men present. Pulling open the dark painted door, the visitor moved swiftly into the warm room and, nodding to the barman, who nodded back in welcome, headed to the far corner of the room, near the small coal fire. All the faces seemed to have an air of comfort and belonging, so were probably locals relaxing after the day’s labor, the visitor thought.

The faint coal smell of the fire mixed with the classic pub aromas brought sadness to the old man. The scent of stale and fresh beer, even without alcohol being served, the odd hint of long ago pipe and tobacco smoke, the odor of decaying paper from the old posters and bills, the sharp tang of cleaning fluid, the sweat of hundreds of years of local patrons and the sweet smells of local fare warming in the unseen kitchen, all gave the old man pause to wonder how many years the fragrances of British freedom would remain in such places.

The others in the pub turned and, seeing that the visitor was not a local, turned back to their conversations without greeting. The lack of a greeting would have seemed odd to most traditional English pub dwellers, but these men had instantly known who the visitor was and did not want to engage him or draw any undue attention to his presence.

Two of the men, for they were all men, were in work clothes of common tradesmen. One near the door was in worn tweeds, with a book nestled in his arm as he sipped his tea. No title was apparent, but seeing a book was a good thing, the old man thought, as he settled into his chair. Two more in the shadows at the back of the pub were clothed in dark company uniforms, but with no obvious insignia. All the men were middle aged or older, save the barman who was probably under thirty.

As the visitor turned away from the other occupants and read over the small menu shoved in a crack in the wall beside his chosen table, the two locals in tradesmen clothes drifted out of the pub, but not through the front door. Evidently, there was a side or back door that the men used.

The wall clock just to the right of the main door had only passed a few minutes when two different men came into the pub from the rear and took up the places where the other two had vacated. Similarly dressed and of like build, a casual glance would tell an observer that the men were the same who had been there all along.

The barman walked over and, in that reluctant fashion of someone who has more weighty concerns on his mind than the customer’s stomach, took the old man’s order for the house tea.

Once the order arrived, the old man sipped the hot tea and nibbled at the small, buttery biscuits arranged with a tiny sandwich on a plain white plate. At least the locals had not forgotten how to make a great biscuit, the old man thought, as he stretched out his time in the pub to well over an hour. Patrons drifted out, and a few in, during the old man’s nursing of his tea, as he carefully studied each new arrival under lidded eyes.

When the bar’s clock arrived at the half-past mark of the appropriate hour, the visitor carefully counted out the money for the fare, nodded to the barman who returned a similarly silent nod, and rose to depart the pub as quietly as he had arrived.

Stepping into the now darkened street, the old man cast his gaze in an arc from his right, which was the east road out of town, back to the center of the square where the same cars remained. To his far left the lane ran to the river, skirting the millpond, over a couple of stout bridges and, finally, through a wide, flat field to another small village just to the south.

Seeing no one and hearing only the usual sounds of a small village settling in for a winter’s evening, the old man stepped to his left, walked across the road and headed down the old mill pond lane.

Suddenly, from one of the lighted homes in the lane to the old man’s immediate left, a young boy bolted into the street. Too far for the old man to see his face clearly in the dim street lamps, the boy paused, as if trying to remember his purpose for bursting on to the street. The child then turned and ran to the small pub that the visitor had just vacated, on what seemed to the visitor to be quite an urgent errand.

Without knocking, the boy disappeared through a small side door and almost immediately came out again holding a package wrapped in brown paper.

As the old man continued down the now dark lane, darkened in evidence of the energy laws which had reduced the number of street lamps and the hours homeowners were allowed to keep outside lights turned on, the young boy rushed by, clutching the obviously precious package from the way he was gripping it close to his jacketed chest. About six feet in front of the visitor, the boy heeled to an abrupt halt, spun around and tipping a non-existent hat, gave the old man a quick greeting and parting in one short breath.

Good evening to you, sir. I must apologize for my haste. Please have a delightful stroll.

Bowing and turning, off the boy went.

As the boy progressed down the lane, the homes and the one or two business that had motion sensitive lights illuminated in turn as the boy ran by. Since the old man was a bit slower, the majority of the lights shut down and then popped back to life again as he passed. From a distance, the visitor saw the boy take the sharp turn at the mill path at full speed and then cynically listened for a splash in the still, cold air.

No splash.

The old man smiled at the boy’s clear knowledge of the darkened paths.

As he moved along the lane, the old man noticed a few faces at the frosted windows of the old houses, many with thatched-roofs and those small, nearly Hobbit-like doors that had always amused the old man. A single lonely face would look out and then one or two more would appear to catch a glimpse of the stranger walking the cold lane. Others would look and then quickly draw the curtains, not wanting to see anything that was new or might invade their content lives.

Still other houses seemed to awaken and the old man could hear doors opening and then closing, quietly. He also heard the faint foot pads of small feet in the side streets and in the alley he knew was just behind the houses to his right.

As the visitor drew nearer to the turn onto the mill house path, a heavier, more adult footstep began to approach in front of the old man from the small footbridge that carried one from across the narrow of the river and under the side of the old mill itself.

The old man gripped his pack more closely and quietly inserted his right hand into the large inside breast pocket of his coat. The approaching woman, for the footsteps had the crisp cadence of a young woman on the march, could simply have been someone out for a stroll, but better to be ready, he thought.

The old man paused, as if to survey the darkness of the millpond before him and waited.

The sounds of the footsteps grew louder, from boots on the planks leading from the concrete and wood bridge to the cobbled passage under the mill house. The old man was following the steps in his mind and, only when the owner of the sound stepped out of the passage into the faint light of the evening, did the old man began to breath normally.

Helen.

One of the teachers. One of the safe ones, the old man recognized.

The woman the old man knew as Helen smiled when she saw the visitor and, without comment, turned and marched up the slight incline and through the gaping double wooden doors of the mill’s adjacent storehouse, long since converted to a museum and town meeting hall. When school and village orchestras had been more prevalent, the building had also done service as the local chamber music venue.

The old man turned back to look down the lane he had just traveled from the square. He stood and listened to the smaller footsteps as they faded away into the night and into, he presumed, some other entrance to the storehouse. As he watched, all the lights that he and the running boy had set off, were, one by one and sometimes a couple at a time, turning off, creating a running screen of darkness from the square to where the old man stood.

Satisfied that all was quiet and the village showed no signs of disturbance, the old man then took his hand out of his coat pocket and, looking up to the few stars that were twinkling on through the winter haze, turned and followed in the footsteps of the woman he knew as Helen, passing through the same large, heavily beamed doors of the old mill’s storehouse that the woman had just graced.

Passing quickly through the apparently deserted entryway, the old man entered a cavernous room that served as the village meeting space and was immediately heartened by the number and diversity of little faces that turned to stare at him with large, wide eyes. Their frank, expectant stares followed his progress across the room’s heavy oaken floor to a small table and a large, aged leather armchair that had been placed near the room’s massive hearth, which was the spartan room’s principal source of heat.

As the stranger made his way to the chair, the room’s occupants saw an old man, possibly in his sixties from the white of his thinning hair and the deep wrinkles in his face, which was oddly tanned for an English winter. Not small, but not large, he was wearing what had once been a quite well tailored dark suit, partially hidden by a charcoal overcoat that was in good repair. He was wearing a soft blue shirt and a thin, possibly dark blue tie with small white images, too small to see unless a few feet from the old man. His boots were sturdy, black with a bit of light colored mud on the right toe. No gloves, so the man’s weathered hands were visible and contained no ornamentation, but did retain the tell-tale tan difference of a missing ring on the ring finger of his left hand. In that same hand was the worn hat, more accurately a cap, the old man had removed as he had crossed the threshold, a cap that told of many years of use. A grey and black plaid pattern that had faded to almost one color was accented by worn edges and what looked like a small, red pin of some sort on the left side.

The man’s stride was deliberate and with purpose, and his face showed a quiet half-smile and grey-blue eyes under his thinning brow. He had the look of a man who wore glasses, yet none were seen either on his nose or hanging about his neck. From the way he nodded to the few adults in the room as he moved across the floor, one would assume that, as with the lady he knew as Helen, he knew them well. The only sounds that could be heard were the breathing children, the muffled crackle of the low fire, and the curiously soft footfalls of the old man’s boots on the heavy floorboards.

Arriving at the hearth, the old man turned and quietly dropped his rucksack on the table next to what looked like the brown paper package the running boy had collected from the pub. The square table was old, with little ornamentation, and sturdy.

The old man propped his walking cane against the heavy chair. The cane, simple of design, dark wood with a small, rounded silver handle, seemed to appear out of thin air as no one had seen the visitor using a cane when he had entered the room.

Standing just in front of the chair, the visiting old man slowly ran his gaze over the crowd arrayed before him.

Small group, the old man thought. Most younger than the last time. With a few repeats. That was a good sign. It meant the parents had not lost their way, the old man thought as he surveyed the school age children.

The younger children were sitting on the floor, arrayed on large pillows, puffy blankets and other manner of cushioning fabric with a sprinkling of older teens sitting in a few folding chairs scattered behind the younger children.

Almost twenty, the old man estimated to himself. There had been over twenty the last visit, but any number was still a good number. Diverse, too, he thought as he tried to identify the various backgrounds of the children from their outward appearances and his knowledge of the village’s families.

Most were of traditional British stock. Pale features, fair to brown hair or the starkly contrasting black hair and pale skin. Of the fair-haired, the twins were the most striking of the girls. Mirror images, slight of build, the two teens sat at the back, close to the corner, each staring at the old man with eyes that seemed to look far beyond their years. They had appeared at these events for a number of years and were always attentive and respectful, no doubt due to their heritage as children of two early zone dissidents, thought the visitor.

The old man then smiled at the two familiar faces, which were so alike, yet very different. Good to see that, when he grew even older and was finally unable to continue, those two might take up the mantle, the old man thought as he nodded to the sisters. They both smiled in return and leaned in opposite directions in their chairs, a small habit that the old man had noticed when he had first seen the two years before, clutching cups of hot tea in their tiny hands and sitting on the edge of their chairs during their first event.

Shifting his eyes towards the main door, the old man mentally checked off others he knew.

One of the younger boys was two generations removed from Korea, his family having been in Britain long before the peninsula’s unification over the previous decade. Two little girls near the front were probably both from the same family three or four generations removed from Persia. From her dark skin and slim build, the old man guessed another of the girls came from a family who had come from East Africa a few years before the transition time. The old man also knew that one of the teens near the back wall came from a wealthy Mumbai merchant family, while the family of the teenage girl to the boy’s immediate right hailed from the Mid-East.

Diverse. A typical British grouping of the new century, the old man thought warmly as he mentally tallied the rest of the children and hoped that his face did not betray any fears of an informant amongst the innocents. Such had happened in the past.

The old man then briefly turned his thoughts to the adults in the room.

There were two other doors leading out of the room. One led to the small kitchen down a short hallway and the other to a longer corridor that led to the WC and to the rear exit. A robust, ginger haired young man in sturdy work clothes stood at the corridor entrance, one foot in the room and one foot literally in the corridor in order to both listen to the visitor and listen to and watch the rear exit.

A second young man, smaller, darker, with the build of a footballer, and wearing simple dark slacks and a light green jumper, stood beside the main door.

Finally, a third sentry, for that’s what they were, the old man understood, leaned casually at the kitchen corridor entrance. The third youth was thin, with long, fair hair, cold blue eyes and the relaxed air of someone much older than his years. The young man was wearing nearly all black, with a black leather jacket just covering a light teal shirt beneath. The old man immediately recognized the air and look of an outland man, nodded his recognition and respect, and then quickly moved his gaze on to the other adults.

The new order of outland men, while unaffiliated with any institution or recognized sect, was a shadowy, closely guarded loose group that tended to draw on outsiders who had family ties in the zone. The mostly young, well educated, and very fit men (and a few women) were called upon when village elders needed more persuasive means of warding off zone intrusions. Most locals who encountered an outland man would automatically look away so as to not draw attention to themselves, or to the outsider. Interestingly, outland men and women, from a wide range of backgrounds, creeds, races, and geographies, were superb chameleons, and only allowed their signature black outfits and teal shirts to be seen if they wanted the locals, or, when needed, the authorities to know when the members were around. One rarely saw the same outland man twice, as they tended to come into the zone for specific missions and then departed by whichever smuggling route had brought them in.

The only other people in the room over school age were two pretty young women, one jovial looking middle-aged man, and one severe-looking man of advanced age, far older than the visitor. The taller of the young women was the woman the visitor knew as Helen who had black, wavy hair, but fair skin, and was dressed in warm, but feminine winter walking attire. The other woman was a stranger to him. She was petite, had dark brown hair and eyes, with a pretty but unassuming face, and wore a heavy wool dress with dancer leggings to ward off the cold. The middle-aged man, who had the nervous habit of smoothing down his hair, was a violin instructor who also taught math and history at the local school, just down the road opposite where the visitor had turned on the mill road. The man of rather advanced age, small, in all black clothes, which emphasized his pale skin and thinning white hair, was a familiar face to the visitor, but they only nodded to each other in silent recognition.

All the adults were dressed in attire appropriate to their roles in the village. All were quite conservative, save for the outland man. He was wearing what would have been