What They Tried

They tried three things.

First they tried walking with other people. On Tuesday Callum arranged for his friend Marcus to walk with them and they went in a group of three down Orchard Road and the figure was not there. No figure at the end of any street the entire walk. Nadia thought this was either good news or the worst possible news and she could not decide which.

"Maybe it has gone," Marcus said cheerfully when they reached the house.

"Maybe," Callum said. He did not sound convinced. He looked at Nadia and Nadia looked at him and they had the conversation they sometimes had without words, the one built from eleven and thirteen years of being in the same family.

The next day Marcus was not with them and the figure was at the end of Grove Terrace, standing in exactly the same posture, same stillness, as if the day without it had not happened at all.

Second they tried going a different way completely, cutting through the park, which added twenty minutes and took them away from any streets at all. Halfway across the park, on the long path between the pond and the bandstand, Callum stopped walking.

Nadia stopped too.

At the far end of the park path, where it met the gate onto Riverside Road, there was a figure.

Standing still. Facing them.

"It came through the park," Callum said. His voice was very flat.

"Or it knew we would," Nadia said.

They stood on the path in the middle of the park with the pond grey and still to their left and the bare trees on either side and the figure at the end of the path and Nadia thought that the park, which she had always liked, had become a completely different kind of place. Not dangerous, exactly. Just no longer safe. There was a difference between those two things and she was only now understanding what it was.

They turned around and went back the way they came and took the long way home by road and the figure was not on any street that day, as if it had used up its one appearance.

Nadia thought about what that meant. That it had a limit. One sighting per day, perhaps, or one location. She did not find this comforting. A thing with rules was not a safer thing. It was just a more organised one.

Third they tried stopping and waiting. This was Callum's idea and Nadia thought it was a terrible idea and said so, but they were on Orchard Road again and the figure was at the end of it and Callum said that they needed to know and stopped walking.

They stood still. The figure stood still. A full minute passed. A car went by. A woman with a dog walked past them without looking up from her phone.

"It is not moving," Callum said quietly.

"Neither are we," Nadia said.

"I am going to walk toward it," Callum said.

"Callum."

"Just a few steps. I want to see what it does."

He took five steps forward. Six. Seven. His hands were in his pockets and his shoulders were very straight in the way they went when he was frightened and trying not to show it.

The figure did not move.

Callum took three more steps.

The figure took one step back.

It did not turn around. It did not look away. It simply stepped back, away from them, maintaining the distance, as if the space between them was something it intended to keep.

Callum came back to Nadia's side very quickly.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay," Nadia said.

They went home by a different road and neither of them spoke much for the rest of the evening.

Nadia lay in bed that night thinking about the single step back. The figure had not run. It had not panicked. It had simply adjusted. As if it had been doing this long enough to know the right distance to keep.