Epilogue - The Morning Fog

The next morning the derelict living room was alive, albeit briefly. Dust hovered lazily in the dreamy morning sunshine as the four young campers got dressed, shaking out and rolling up sleeping bags, packing dried clothes and odds and ends into bags, and generally getting ready to leave for the bright outdoors.

In their small talk, all four of them expressed views that I found mildly interesting. While Sheryl said that she'd slept like a log, Lori still felt tired "as if I'd been up all night". Niggle had a headache worthy of a hangover. "I only had one can of beer. I wouldn't mind so much if I'd had a bucket-load, but this is ridiculous!" And Graham quietly confided in Niggle that he felt "as if something had died" in him since failing to even kiss Sheryl the night before, when he'd fallen on top of the bags with her. Such talk, from all of them, made me ponder on the nature of echoes...

Of course Niggle gave his friend some worldly wise support, telling him he'd get other chances and that he shouldn't let himself get so wound up by it. "Chill out a bit," he said. "You're probably as much worried about your car."

Sheryl came out into the hall, trying to get a signal on her phone, but she still had no luck. She looked at the bare walls of the staircase, and seemed shocked, as if she'd expected something to hang there. She frowned, and then shrugged, dismissing the thought. This beautiful young woman was an orphan. I'd learned that much while in her mind. So familiar looking. But I refused to dwell on it; I didn't want echoes attaching themselves to these four. Not now. I was free, and so should they be.

The others followed her out of the old living room, Niggle pulling on his woolly hat while holding a bag in one hand and his guitar in the other; his camouflage jacket still looking damp from the night before. No sign of tweed. And the tall muscular Graham was in a navy t-shirt and jeans, more athletic looking than soldierly. Farmer's boy rather than canon fodder. And then there was Lori, no different all along; now in black jacket and mini skirt.

"I don't know why we're coming out with the boys just now," Lori told Sheryl as they all came out into the crisp morning air, where sunshine was lighting the damp white mist in a yellow glow. "They'll be up to their arms in oil and car things for half an hour before they've got us ready to go again."

Graham, none too happy on hearing that remark, reached the car first. The vehicle was still pitched in a ditch, inches from an old barbed wire fence glistening with dew, an abandoned field of rusted long grass on the other side.

He dropped his bags on the road, unlocked the door, leaving it open while climbing into his seat and turning the key in the ignition. To his great surprise and relief the car started up perfectly first time. He eased his foot on the accelerator pedal, which responded perfectly.

Niggle burst out laughing at Lori.

Graham gave Lori a huge victorious grin also. "Right little Miss-Informed, what do you say to the sound of that then?!"

Lori bit at the inside of her cheek, but she was grinning despite herself, ready for once to let Graham to have the last word.

After bundling their stuff in the boot, they all got in the car, and Graham drove out of the ditch and back down the road.

And did they drive off without a bye or a leave? Sort of. As they drove away from the house, music blaring, their attention was caught by a hitchhiker ahead of them, his back turned and walking on the verge heading in the same direction as them. They must have all thought him vaguely familiar, for as they drove past, Niggle was looking over his shoulder from the passenger seat, Graham frowning in his driver's side mirror, and the girls gazing out of the back window. I gave a casual farewell salute but they didn't see me. The hitchhiker had disappeared as the car passed him. Disappeared like a ghost into the glow of burning mist.

***

So, was this my story? Or was I merely the figment of the imagination, dreamt up by one of the four who slept in that house on that oh so dark and story night? And yet, if so, which sleeper? I think you will agree, it could have been any of them.

For my part, whoever I am, whether you think me a dream, the product of a séance, or simply a ripple in time, I have said enough. I know I will live on in your memories, leaving me to rest here, in the house where it began, in the midst of a photograph having come to stand behind a young couple smiling out from long ago. All three of us at peace.

And if this was my story, I guess I must now draw it to a close. For even a story about time must have a beginning, a middle and an [end].