CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They felt the change in the air; a subtle shift in the wind and rain that swept through the village. It danced across their skin like the scattered steps of a hundred crawling flies; an interminable itch growing stronger and more irritant with each passing day, until one morning when winter broke and with it the news that three boys had been reported missing.
The village embraced the hunt. Neighbours, not carollers, knocked from door to door and the skies filled with the baying of hounds, a full month before Midwinter, as residents followed their struggling dogs over the heathland. The village resonated with dread feeling, visible in the haunted eyes of the residents, if only they knew what they were seeing.
The boys’ names were Andrew Stone, Stewart Foxley and Christoph
