So, I still do this. Honest. I’ve just been busy. Which is unfortunate because November is coming up and we all know how well that goes. Maybe because of my horrible neglect in October, I shall post in November. Maybe I’ll just post my rambling nonsense from NaNo. That sounds fun right?

Right?

 

II

 

I hate motels. They’re dingy pits filled with a perpetual smell of petroleum, ubiquitous and unidentifiable stains covering dated carpets and continental breakfasts solely composed of stale coffee and week old muffins. The only thing I ever like about them is they’re typically staffed by workers who are just as embarrassed about the place as the guests are.

The Dickie Bird Motel is such a place barring the staff.

The proprietor and, from what I could tell the sole worker, is a middle aged man who introduced himself as Emile Masson. Despite the name, I can’t get over his dark complexion and hair or his short stature. He has a splotchy beard and crinkly face that’s jovial but eerily out of place. He doesn’t speak with an accent, thankfully. And I am polite enough to not ask about his background.

“Around for another day are you?”

I blow on the lukewarm swill in my cup.

“Guess so.”

“Keep this up and I’d think you’d want to take up residence!”

He laughs at his own joke. I wrap up the half-eaten muffin.

“Seriously though, don’t get many people staying too long. Bit of a surprise is all, as most are just laying-over from the highway. Heading down south for those nice beaches. T’is a pity, I always say. We’ve got some perfectly fine surf here. But folks just want that sun, I suppose.”

“Guess so.”

My chair scrapes loudly as I stand and deposit the remains of my breakfast in the black garbage bag. Emile is moving about the tables, pretending to be cleaning. Hardly a speck of dirt on them as most guests have already packed up and moved on. Not that there’s any reason to hang around. The breakfast area is in the same foyer as Emile’s front desk and this motel is hardly sporting any pools or spas.

“I’ve got a few brochures of the area. Some fine old lighthouses dotted about. Get a few motorists that make a hobby of checking out historical places. Think we’ve got a few geocaches too if that’s your interest.”

He’s dead set on a conversation. My neck is still sore from his rock-hard pillows and lumpy mattress. The Dickie Bird is the only thing in the area with a decent recommendation online, however. Which worries me what the state of the Maryhill hotel would be.

“Not really here for sight-seeing.”

“Fishing is it? Didn’t think I noticed a canoe or anything on your car. A few rentals not too far out.”

“I’m actually looking for someone.”

Emile pauses in his housekeeping.

“Is that so?”

It’s clear he doesn’t know what to do with this information. I can hardly blame him. I get a lot of those blank stares.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about Maryhill, would you?”

His mood sours instantly. I watch as he turns instinctively from the window, suddenly becoming preoccupied with a spot on the table.

“You came all this way for that place, huh?”

“Not specifically. Got some word they were headed this way. You ever heard of the Pitch Dark?”

Emile is visibly shaken. He folds up his cloth and makes his way to the counter.

“You sure you aren’t looking for some fishing?”

I don’t know why I press. Maybe I feel guilty for his sudden change in disposition. Maybe I am worried about his brief look of horror. I reach into my coat pocket and extract a small photograph. It’s worn, now. The edges are bent. I place it on the counter and slide it across.

“These are my cousins.” I look him hard in the face. “Been gone for a few years now. Just up and left one night. Took their children with them and didn’t say a word. I’m trying to find them.”

Emile tries to keep from the photograph. His conscience gets the better of him. He picks it up, turning on the side lamp to look at it clearer.

“Cute girls.”

“Eleven and seven at the time. That one’s Madison. The other’s Zoe.”

He looks at it for a time. I can’t read his expression but it’s clear he’s wrestling with something. I pinch the photo, gently removing it from his grasp.

“I just want to make sure they’re alright.”

He nods, blinking as I put the photograph back in my jacket pocket.

“And you think they’re here?”

“As I said, I got word they were headed this way.”

“I don’t know much about… Maryhill.” He chokes on the word as though it’s poison to his throat. “Don’t have any reason to be heading that way, myself. Not a lot of people go there. Oh, she’s seen better days, that’s for certain. But there’s an unpleasantness about her that puts visitors right off. Been like that ever since I’ve worked here.”

“What of the Pitch Dark?”

“What of it?”

“You don’t know anything about that?”

“Only what I got on the news,” Emile says, nodding towards the small television in the corner. “Wasn’t a pleasant business, overall. Most are happy to have it go away and be forgotten. We still get a few curiosity seekers come through. Poking around for it and all that. For the most part, though, it’s come and gone.”

I shake my head.

“You haven’t really said what it is.”

“I wouldn’t know!” Emile says quickly. He looks around, as though he expects some phantom audience to be listening in on the conversation. “I just… heard the gossip and whatnot. Honest.”

“What was the gossip.”

“Not good.”

I can tell when things are heading in circles. I rap an anxious knuckle on the counter before realizing my options are exhausted.

“Well, thank you very much.”

Maybe it’s my tone, but Emile calls as I’m pushing open the door.

“It was an unpleasant sort of business!” I look back at him, door still open to the grey skies. “It was no family establishment, that’s for certain. They held midnight performances only… of a peculiar sort. I remember some of the people who’d come for them. You can tell the type. Strangers they were, in more ways than one. Most didn’t stay here though. Don’t rightly know where they stayed. They’d come for their shows and then… who knows.”

“What kind of shows are we talking about? Everything online was vague.”

“They wouldn’t post something like the Pitch Dark online.” Emile shakes his head as though to dislodge something from his mind. “Unwholesome. Debauched. Exotic-like. As I said, nothing suitable for a good family.”

“And now it’s closed.”

“That’s a blessing, it is,” Emile says. “Not sure why. Police got involved after some anonymous tip. Launched an investigation and everything. Their press release was brief. Said they found things. Disturbing things. Didn’t go into detail and no one pressed. So it just sort of… blew on by.”

“You haven’t seen a Volkswagen by chance?”

“Seen a lot.”

“Recently?”

“I don’t keep a car registry, I’m afraid.”

“Thanks.”

I make sure to sound appreciative this time. His reply feels genuine.

“Be safe.”

The Dickie Bird is placed along the highway and it takes me a good two hours of meandering country road to get back to dreary Maryhill. It’s still muted and lifeless in the daylight with its disquieting residents shambling along the paths. I don’t have much of a direction this time. I drive by the theatre but have no energy to search it. One look and the exhaustion of last night’s visit hits me like a pile of bricks. But I’m not looking for decrepit ruins today.

I need to find that car.

I spend the better part of the morning driving up and down those few streets. I keep telling myself that I’ll happen upon it at any moment. When lunch comes around, I stop at the smallest store I’ve ever seen. The clerk is sullen as he sells me some plain bread and a few over-priced fruit. Grumbles about the lack of fish and I can’t help but notice he hasn’t bothered to update his signs to reflect the lack of stock.

I eat in the lot beneath the local church. The bright red roof gives some life to the wretched village. But it doesn’t bring any comfort. I watch the sea churn its thick, dark waves. A few boats blink amongst the crests, near drowned in the carpeting clouds stifling the horizon. I find my heart racing just thinking of those desolate souls tossing back and forth. My lunch lurches in my stomach.

Maybe a drive will help clear my mind.

I put Maryhill behind me, following the languid road through the scoured rocky seaside. Though the town proper falls away, there’s still far flung homes scattered amongst the scraggly grass. It might have looked serene on a sunny day but to me it’s all desolation. Gives the sense of a worn battlefield than quaint countryside. I can’t help but wonder how much blood has been put into the earth but a glance to the dark waters makes me think it’s all gone to a different end.

I don’t think much of the outcropping when it pops up from the ground as I mount the ridge. The thick stone is smoothed and worn from weathering and has the appearance of a broken and hunched giant’s back. Nothing grows across his pale sides as the stone behemoth appears to be dragging his tired body into the hungry waves breaking across his neck. I wonder if it’s a lookout and briefly consider searching for a route up.

It’s then I notice the shack.

It’s a small, grey wood structure like something that has been washed out to sea centuries ago and only recently been tossed back. Its windows are dark, the glass rippled like a pond disturbed by an unseen finger. A multitude of empty drying racks dot the plot, the bare wood all that’s left of a long dead carcass picked clean.

But it’s not the traditional architecture that makes me swerve onto the narrow path running towards its fastened front door. There’s a Volkswagen parked beside it. A Volkswagen with a familiar dint above the back right wheel well.

I’m rubbing my eyes as I come to a stop mere feet from the fender. My headlights pool across the metal, glittering off the flecks of sea spray and early drizzle. I open my door in a daze, the wind slamming me inside my car as I shake the eerie grip of delusion from my mind.

I can hardly believe the letters stamped across the licence plate.

BAHC-353.

I near slip on the moistened rock underfoot as I stumble from my vehicle still thrumming with its live engine. I have to touch it. I have to reassure myself that my sight isn’t deceiving me.

The metal is biting cold beneath my fingers. My breath fogs the glass. I press my nose against the windows but there are no familiar faces peering  from the interior.

I turn towards the rundown shack. My fist rings against the wood. The door nearly buckles from my greeting.

Perhaps it is the ferocity of my announcement but there’s an immediate answer to my summons. The face that peels the door away is a withered and creased thing half-hidden beneath a beard so ferocious and ratty that it looks like something had hooked on the man’s face and perished. It is impossible to age the man beneath the sagging cowls of his upper-lids and the splotchy skin pulled taut across his wiry frame. He could be ancient, some relic even older than his home spat from the sea. Or he could be a handful of years my junior, aged well beyond recognition from toils demanded by the small dingy clattering along the pier out the back of his abode.

“Who are you?”

It is not much of a welcome but a befitting one for a stranger clutching his coat and staring as hard as he can at the native.

“This your house?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Is that your car?”

This makes the bearded man falter. His response is noticeably less assured. “Yes.”

“Where did you get it?”

“What’s it to you?”

I don’t know where the surge of adrenaline originates, but I grab the man fiercely by his frayed sweater and pull him from his stoop. His hands are upon mine, far stronger than I expect. We wrestle but briefly. My shoes slip upon the stones and sense is jostled harshly into my body as I bang against the unrelenting earth.

The man scrambles for some object to defend himself but his rusted hammer is no good against the weapon I wield.

He pauses as I hold the photograph aloft.

“Where are they!” I cry into the wind. The sea pulls hungrily at the photo. Water streaks my burning face but the ocean spray and mist refuse to reveal whether it is tears of rage or not. The fisherman lowers his tool.

“Get out before I call the cops!”

I stumble to my feet, my clothes heavy with the moisture they have stolen.

“Where are they!” I demand again.

The fisherman turns to his modest home but I stumble after him before he can shut the door.

“I’ll go to the police. I know they were here!”

He stands in his entryway, water dripping upon the naked boards.

“I don’t know nothing about them!”

“That’s their car!” I point, still reassuring myself that it rests in the driveway.

“I don’t know anything!”

“Where did you get their car? Were they here? Did you invite them in?”

“I don’t know nothing about no damn family!”

He turns, a flurry of emotion written across his face. He looks sternly in my eye. His hands ball into fists. And yet, the picture still shakes in my grip. He looks down on the faces as though transfixed by the frozen people trapped in their old frame.

My voice is hoarse as it struggles through my lips.

“Where are they?”

He holds one of his wizened hands over his eyes, rubbing something away. When last he looks at me, his face is drained. All that’s left is a crippling fatigue that sags his shoulders.

“I found it,” he whispers. The words are nearly lost in the wind. “I found it just up the ways. Headed into town. Just sitting on the side of the road there like a little gosling that lost her mother. Doors were all open. The light was like a beacon…”

He shakes his head again and waves towards the car.

“Not a sign of nobody, I swear.”

I shake my head. This makes no sense.

“Why didn’t you report it?”

“Have you seen this place?” the fisherman cries. “My hauls are empty. The sea’s been angry for years now. I haven’t… I have to eat. I have to eat! I can barely afford to keep my boat in repair. I thought… well maybe this was my time, you know. Old Maryhill’s supposed to bring about fortunes when the Lord is pleased and all. I figured maybe this was that sign. I swore if the owner ever came back, I’d be right as happy to return it. I would! But, well, no one ever came.”

I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. I look about his property though it’s not like I’m going to find an open grave with my cousins all piled inside. I look the photograph over, wiping off what rain I can before putting it safely back in my coat.

“I want to look at it.”

“Yes,” he says, nodding. “Of course.”

He takes only a moment, disappearing behind his door. He returns with keys jangling in hand. He motions towards the car but I hold out my palm. He looks at them reluctantly before passing them over.

I circle the car as I search for anything. I try opening the door but I don’t recognize all the keys on the chain. It takes a couple of tries before I get it unlocked.

The smell is the first thing to hit.

I don’t have a lot of memories of this vehicle. My familiarity has developed by pouring over old albums and photographs. But I’m certain I would have remembered the heavy stench of fish and rot that permeates it. I gulp what fresh air I can before climbing inside.

The interior is disgusting. Garbage piles on the passenger seats. Stains and grime stick upon every surface. I don’t want to touch anything. I poke through it anyway.

There’s little in the glove compartment that hints at any prior owner. There’s nothing of my cousins amongst the filth that litters the floor. Cigarette burns mar the dashboard but they never smoked. It wasn’t good for the kids. There isn’t even a CD in the tray.

Whatever was left of my cousins has been buried or removed by the slimy, greasy fingers of that man.

Yet another dead end.

I slam my fists against the wheel. The horn echoes the forlorn cry I cannot give.

No, I’m on the right track. I have to be. This is proof. This is what I’ve been looking for all these years. I pull myself from the car, breathing in the fresh air. I take out my phone, snapping a few shots of the vehicle. I make sure to angle my pictures to include the fisherman in them without him realizing.

“So there was nothing in the car?” I ask.

“No.”

He isn’t convincing.

“I want to see inside your home.”

“No way! Look, I’ve been plenty accommodating. But I really don’t know what happened to the last owners.”

I try to sneak a peek of his house as I hand back the keys and he locks himself inside. It’s not likely that he’d have something of theirs anyway.

I remember searching their home and noting much of the kids’ things were gone–as was the luggage. It is as though they packed up for an impromptu vacation. For this vehicle to be here, they had to have travelled a great ways with it packed to the brim. It’s simply not possible that he found the car without anything inside.

I make sure to take a shot of his house before climbing into my car. I’ll poke around the shops and see if I can’t find something of theirs. He probably pawned it and probably locally. He doesn’t seem the type to offload a bunch of stolen belongings without leaving a paper trail.

I’m giddy as I drive into Maryhill. Perhaps it’s the first time I actually face the village with a smile. It doesn’t last long. I’m across town in a few minutes before I even remember that I didn’t find any pawnshops in my prior searches. I stop in that sad little store where I bought lunch and get a confirmation. The closest one is a few days travel down the highway.

The wind is gathering more furor so I decide to call it early and head back to the Dickie Bird.

I haven’t forgotten you. Though sometimes it feels like I have…

 

I

 

Five years of obsession and searching have brought me here. Five long years and I have a name at last. It’s not an answer but at least it’s a new question.

The Pitch Dark Theatre.

It’s not much to look at now. It’s one of those old, colonial types. Never really cared for architecture myself. That is more Therese’s thing. She loves old homes. Always going on about the Georgians, Gothic Revivals and Queen Annes. Yeah, this could be a Queen. Those are her favourite and this has vestiges of that gingerbready look. I have a feeling she wouldn’t be too fussed about this one, though.

It squats on the ridge like some fat vulture hungrily eyeing the street. Its long windows are boarded and shut to the crashing surf still audible despite the wind. Half the shutters have fallen off rusted hinges and the few that remain batter against the brick side. At one time it was probably fancy like a governor’s house or a hotel. It isn’t much now. The only sense of colour to represent its regal construction is in the blocky graffiti sprayed across its wall. But even that is sparse.

Few weeds sprout on a front lawn too dry to entertain grass for a spell. The barren ground is an oddity given the heavy clouds overhead. The smell of rot permeates the air and the boards sag underfoot. Paint peels and flakes but reveals nothing beneath other than more blighted black wood.

And then there is that damnable police tape snapping in the air. The edges are frayed. The words are faded. Someone put this up then couldn’t be bothered to return and take it down. It’s like the whole town has condemned the place, marked it off and quarantined it.

The message is clear: stay away.

But I can’t. There’s something about the name. I hold my phone before the facade, looking over what it once was. The Internet still has pictures of it back when Maryhill was proud of the monument. Bright cornerstones encased the red brick with inlaid terracotta panels and a large disposed set of windows with arched upper sashes and a gabled roof. Asymmetrical oriel windows pop from its otherwise flat side with impressive set ornamental frames that would have certainly been a big draw back in the day.

Now, they are more like pustulating blemishes bulging from the skin and ready to burst. Ornamental chimneys rise behind the single, oddly placed tower as though the roof has grown a row of crooked teeth. The whole front curves and buckles at irregular angles like the ground is trying to dislodge and pitch the entire misshapen thing into the sea.

And while it was bright and decorated in the photo, now it is all black. Thick, choking paint runs over everything, right down to the fish scale shingles so that a sense of form and depth is utterly lost amongst that unending nothingness.

I snap a photo anyway.

I take a look about the street before ducking beneath the tape. It is unnecessary but after five years of questionable searches and more than a few awkward conversations with local authorities, some habits are hard to shake. No one really walks by this old building though. I haven’t seen a single soul even look its way from the lower roads.

The wood groans as I pass. There’s no front door anymore. Pieces of scattered, broken wood are the only hints to the theatre’s final night. I enter the foyer without any resistance, picking a path amongst the construction half forgotten in the curved entrance. The hallways are open to me, all doorways eerily empty of their teeth. Wind whistles through the building’s vacated bones as litter and dirt spreads from the passing of rodents and birds.

I make my way forward. Despite the dirt, the only thing that stands out as peculiar is the walls. They’re covered in wide streaks of bright white paint. It seems like someone had come through with ambitious intentions despite the animals ruining the effort. Lines stripe the ceiling too, as though to scrub the offending black wholly from existence. As I proceed deeper, however, the effort dwindles. Solitary lines are all that remain until I step into a central courtyard eerily untouched by this mysterious renovator.

It’s a strange design. Where should lie the heart of the house rests a cobbled square with a covered walkway that circles its perimeter. There’s a visible chill in the air as numerous passages lead to this small, open space. Looking up, I can see the persistent grey sky heavy with rain clouds too full to break. Silhouettes of the square chimneys feel like a penning fence, their throats long drained of any smoke.

Without the mad renovator’s touch, the effect of that black paint is heaviest here. It oozes from every post, brick and stone. Only the single shaft of light overhead can penetrate that gloom. The air is thick as though it carries twisting chains that wrap about my ankles and wrists. The windows overlooking the yard are just as dark and unnerving.

But nothing is worse than that stairwell.

It’s little more than a slit in the ground like a tear in the very earth. Darkness almost bubbles forth from its gaping cavity and there’s an oppressive silence that deafens my senses. Looking upon that hole I’m unable to shake a powerful sense of dread.

Naturally, I turn and poke amongst the side passages.

I don’t know how long I wander. Each room I step into is just like the last. It’s as though I’m witnessing the frozen battle between two eternal forces. Black and white paint hangs from every surface. Where expensive rugs and ornate furniture should be there is nothing but those naked walls clashing in their two tones. The borders and mouldings are lost amongst careless brush swipes. It’s impossible to say who is winning.

And no matter where I wander, I always emerge in that dreaded courtyard. Even as I attempt to navigate myself away from it, the curious twisting corridors and small, numerous blank rooms always end by disgorging me into that pit of darkness. There’s nothing here on the main floors. I can’t even say that the place has been ransacked. It’s almost as though there was nothing ever here.

The fifth time I enter the courtyard, I look up to the sky to see it darkening just like the house. A shudder runs down my spine as my eyes are inextricably drawn towards those hollow, descending steps. I haven’t checked the upper floors yet and by now I’m not certain I even want to explore them.

I convince myself that it would be too dangerous in a building this neglected without a flashlight. I poke amongst the corridors until I find the one that leads out. I don’t even bother hiding my sigh of relief as I duck beneath the police tape and hurry down the path to the street. I pause before the driver’s door to look at the Pitch Dark Theatre in the deepening twilight. It’s like a shadow now but of what I cannot say–just a dark smear across a dark sky.

I get into the car and drive, thankful for the shine of my headlights.

It feels like another wasted day. It feels like another dead end. Nothing to show for my work. Nothing to confirm these nagging doubts latched in the back of my mind. I was certain this would be it. Looking at the building felt like I finally caught my break.

The rest of Maryhill is unremarkable colonial nothingness. It’s a village forgotten by time. The small, squat homes are bleak and lifeless. The few inhabitants on the street huddle against the terrible wind rolling off the waters, clutching their torn plastic bags as they shuffle for the recluse of their small lives. It’s a dead town at the end of a very dead trail.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s time to give this up.

I’m turning the car towards the highway when something catches the corner of my eye. I slam the brakes and screech to a stop.

There, beneath the pale light of a local hotel is the worn, beaten Volkswagen with the telltale dent above its back right wheel well. I’m in shock as I fumble for my phone. I’m flicking between photo albums before I even realize I’m parked in the middle of the street. I signal and turn into the hotel’s parking lot, taking a space two down from the Volkswagen. I find a picture of the old car, parked beneath the cherry tree. It looks better then and not just because of the two girls sitting in its open trunk smiling for the camera. Their feet dangle over the licence plate but I can still make out enough of it.

BAHC-353.

I climb out, pausing just long enough to look up and down the street. Nobody wants to brave this weather this late in the evening. As I move around the car, I look towards the hotel entrance. All the windows are dark like most of Maryhill but a small, fluorescent Open sign flickers in the corner of the front glass.

I crouch by the back plate, wiping some of the mud away.

BAHC-353.

My heart is pounding. This is it. I look back at the hotel.

It’s a small place. Certainly less grandiose than the Pitch Dark Theatre. It’s covered in that quaint country white paint though the wind and sea salt has caused it to peel in places. The roof sags beneath its own dissolution. The curtains are frilled, stained and faded. Perhaps it would have been lovely back in the seventeen hundreds. Now it was much like the rest of the town–living well past its natural life.

I open the front door. The soft chime of bells ring overhead. The wind groans after me, causing small papers to flutter of a nearby stand. I slam the door shut, bending to pick up the mess I’ve inadvertently made. They are travel brochures though none of the pictures on them look like Maryhill. They’re all colourful villages filled with smiling people.

“Can I help you?”

The question is more accusatory than polite. A young girl sits behind an awkward counter blocking a half open door to the back rooms. An empty pot rests beside her, nothing in it except dry dirt and a wooden dowel to support the faded idea of a flower.

She’s a young thing, barely old enough to be working a counter and certainly not old enough to be working this late. Her eyes are cold and bored; it is the vacant stare reserved only for those in that obnoxious stage of teenhood where their minds possess the singular thought that they amongst all others know everything but can’t be bothered to share any of it.

“Busy day, eh?” I ask. It’s a lame attempt to liven the mood.

She’s duly unimpressed.

“Not here, no.”

“That your car out front?”

“I don’t have my licence yet.”

“It’s a guest’s then?”

“The hotel doesn’t have guests anymore.”

She keeps that dead stare and, though those empty eyes rest solely in a young thing’s face, I can’t help but shift beneath them. The floor creaks with my weight as I search for an unassuming route of enquiry.

“A co-worker’s then?”

She doesn’t reply.

“Look, I just want to talk to whoever drives that Volkswagen in your lot.”

She shakes her head, a few strands of dirty brown hair falling loose. She adjusts them before she speaks.

“There’s no car in the lot.”

I try not to grit my teeth.

“Yes, there is.”

“There isn’t.”

I look out the window. Even with the lacy curtains, I can still see the outline of the car sitting plain as day in front of the hotel. God damn kids.

“Look, it’s really important that I speak to the driver of that vehicle. So, either you tell me who it is or I’m going to knock on each of these doors until I find whoever brought it here.”

I wave my hand down the side hall where the guest rooms clearly lie. She shakes her head but says nothing more, looking down to the faded pages of a book behind the counter.

“Fine then!”

I turn but have only taken three steps before I hear that telltale thrum of an engine igniting. I look out the window to see the vehicle’s lights angling towards the street.

She doesn’t even look up as I wrench open the door and burst into the night.

I fumble my keys, half distracted watching the Volkswagen pull away. A light fog is rolling in from the sea and I’m just slamming the door as the first tendrils wrap about my car. The engine stutters several times.

Not now. Not today.

“Come on!”

But even as the car shakes to life, I know I’m already too late. The wheels squeal as I spin onto the road and tear down the street. I’m looking down every side lane as I pass but there’s nothing here now–only fog and darkness.

I circle Maryhill’s main road twice. It’s not that large. But there’s no sign of the Volkswagen. It’s like it wasn’t there at all. My stomach’s growling by the time I give up.

I have to pass the hotel on the way out of the village. I restrain myself from raising my finger. It’s not like she’d see it anyway.