The Fog
The fog arrives with the finality of a librarian closing a book.
It does not hurt. That is somehow the unsettling part. It is thick and cool and smells faintly of candle smoke, and it steers you β politely, insistently, a hand at your elbow that is not a hand β through streets you cannot see, past voices that hush as you pass.
"...asking about it outright, in the bakeryβ" "...Edith all over again..." "...the Keeper will sort it. The Keeper sorts everything."
When the fog thins, you are standing in the middle of Wrenfell Square, facing the war memorial, as if you had never been anywhere else. Your questions have not been answered. They have been filed.