two young ghosts;

.

Lydia understood above everything that for some this was the best case scenario, the best thing that could of happened at all. Not many people got the chance to rise from the dead and have another chance at life. They didn’t often have the opportunity to change the fates of those they loved either. Lydia would have been the first person to step forwards to celebrate their new chances, the ultimate optimism of being the only one holding onto to the shreds of good left in the world. The truth was that now she was just drained, struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel because it dimmed more and more every day. 

“Or maybe it’s just unlimited,” she says with a raggedy breath, a thought about the truths that she knew for sure. There didn’t seem to be any restriction on how much pain or happiness you could feel; sometimes both at once. That was the experience she was having now every time her gaze was on George or Nina’s faces. “Maybe there’s no real guarantees. We’re just here and this is our life and one way or another, things happen however they want to. I just don’t understand how the universe decided on us. This doesn’t happen. This isn’t how life works.”

-

A shiver made its way up the length of Penny’s spine, pinching her nerves for a fleeting moment as she absorbed Lydia’s words and allowed their sentiment to settle in the pit of her stomach. To think that everything was so open ended made her feel untethered, as if she could drop into a free-fall at any given moment. “S’pose it doesn’t matter much if there’s nothing we can do to control the tide,” she suggested, though it sounded more like she was giving up than it did like she was accepting their fate; whatever it may be. 

She looked over at Lydia then, “ How can you be sure it did pick us? Who’s to say there isn’t a hundred and one towns all over the world, just like this one, going through exactly what we’re going through right now- or summat like it, anyway. For all we know, there could be people sat down having this exact conversation in Polish or Swahili right now- and we’d never know, would we?” again, the uncertainty left a bitter taste on the end of her tongue.

.

Lydia’s Grandmother would probably say something very similar, the innate belief that all the bad things in the world must have happened for some greater reason. Not so long ago, before her life had been stripped back to bitter foundations once again, she had wholeheartedly agreed with this sentiment. Of course everything happened for a reason… it had to. If it didn’t then life was just never-ending chaos and there was nobody to blame or thank for any of the terrible or wonderful things that had happened. She listens to Penny and wonders if honestly, she had the chance to go back in time and alter the way things had gone, she would never have made the mistakes she did. Lydia is beginning to think that maybe people always do the same things, they don’t really want a different life.

It wasn’t Penny’s fault, it wasn’t Cyrelle’s fault, it wasn’t Dean’s fault. It was the universe, wasn’t it? All the things that could have been left in the dust thrown back into the air, her throat closing from all the poisonous spores that infected her lungs. 

“Maybe,” it was a simple word, no loading, no venom behind it. Anything was possible, wasn’t it? Even in her sadness, disappointment and complete dismay, she knew that the reason they were back here was probably because of Nina and George… the others too. Things were not meant to end the way they had before. It was the only explanation that could be fathomable. Despite that, Lydia thought about the jealousy she had felt towards those who had died before they could taste betrayal and wondered again if her life would not have been better had it come to a more sudden end before all this heartbreak. Was that a selfish thought or a selfless one? She wanted them to live and she also wanted to be spared from the pain she had suffered after they did so. “I’m just starting to wonder how high the toll we paid to get back to 2014 was and if we could really afford the passage.”

-

Penny swallowed but the lump in her throat refused to shift. Maybe. It wasn’t an acceptance of her words but it wasn’t a complete denial either and anyway, it was better than Lydia telling her to fuck off, she supposed. She found her breath caught in her lungs again then, anxiety creeping up her throat as if it was wound tight in barbed wire. The price.  This was not something she’d considered before. Nothing in life was free, after all. That wasn’t another one of her grandmother’s sentiments but it was something she’d learned to be true along the way, more than once or twice before.

“I don’t know,” she spoke feebly and it was true. She didn’t know. She felt like she didn’t know anything anymore. Truth be told, she hadn’t sacrificed anything yet and all things considered, she’d probably benefited the most from everything, aside from Rachel Flynn, perhaps.  Was her payment overdue, in that case? “It could be a case of better the devil you know,” she suggested, though the thought made her stomach twist in knots. “I thought this was the best thing that could happen to any of us, for a time I did,” and to some extent, every time she saw her brother’s face, she still believed it, “-but maybe the cards are already on the table, they’re just being dealt in a different order now,” she considered, uncharacteristically philosophical for the blonde who usually left that sort of thinking to others. “Like there’s only so much good and so much bad, that doesn’t change, the only thing that changes is the way it all plays out,” she couldn’t help but steal another glance at Lydia’s legs then. It wasn’t fair but then again, nothing was, was it?

@penelopecar​

It felt like a lifetime or two since they had truly seen each other face to face, another life entirely spread out ahead of them that she would never be able to revisit. They were all littered with the same actions, Lydia’s arms a comfort, her voice a steady guiding light for a girl who was wrapped in her own chaos. Lydia had loved Penny as much as she had loved every sweet gentle thing in the world and had always been over zealous in seeing the best in her. In a way, she had been what she always thought Rachel was for Cyrelle; the person that always saw the best in you despite the way you hurt others, despite everything that you did to try and make it impossible to be close to you. Penny had been Lydia’s very best friend but Lydia quietly knew that she had never been hers. She stood in Fawna’s vacancy like a seasonal temp that could be released from their contract at any time. At least that’s how it always felt.

Spiralling… that was one way to explain how Lydia felt right now. She had held onto the edges of her reality and reason for her entire life to make it all make sense. Now she was living in a new reality that was rather unkind and her eyes were pinned open, forced to watch the carnage of what was to come. The tea pot in the sitting room whistled, “I don’t know what I’m meant to do with my life. Everything has changed, all the things that I knew and all the things that I loved are gone and now I have to go back to the beginning. I have to start all over in this world that we’ve been left with.”

-

She silently thanked the deities for the sound of the kettle whistling aloud, piercing the silence and relieving the room of at least a fraction of the tension between the two girls that occupied it. She loved Lydia, she had always loved her. Envied her. Had curiosities about her that would never be sated but she had never given Lydia the time nor attention she deserved. No, Penny’s mind and heart had always been elsewhere, whether she was aware of it or not.

Now, they were sat alone with no more than a pot of tea to divide their attention. She inhaled sharply but deeply as the brunette spoke, digesting her words and thinking carefully before she offered a response. This was the first time Penny had actually considered the fact that while she had been given a second chance, a fresh start, others had had their success stripped away from them and whether or not they would ever get it back remained uncertain. She couldn’t imagine it, she hadn’t given it the time.

“Our grandmother always used to say that everything happens for a reason,” she suggested, finding it difficult to know where to start, “I don’t know if it’s true but I do like to think that it is,” she confessed, “I cant say I know what’s going to happen- honestly, I can’t even say I know what’s happening right now but God, I just hope there’s a reason for all this, I have to believe there is,” she spoke in a tone peppered with desperation. 

She found her eyeline drifting to Lydia’s leg then, whether it was subconscious or not. Time to be honest. She took another breath in and straightened her spine, “You’re so much more than dance, you know that?” she offered, though it pained her to admit because she couldn’t say the same of herself. Penny didn’t have the personality, the brains, the ambition, the anything else to leave a mark on the world without a pair of pointe shoes on but for Lydia, kind, generous, loyal, forgiving, dance was just a fraction of the rich tapestry that made her who she was.

“It’s obvious, innit? In my ideal life, my brother is still alive, my family can still talk to one another without thinking about how life would be so bloody different if George was still around. I can perform without looking for where he should have been sat in the audience, I can celebrate his birthday without a couple of bottles of wine to help me get to sleep and stop the sobbing, I’ve got friends that I can talk to about him, friends that knew what a character he was but also how annoying he could be when he wanted it. Friends like Fawna, who I’d have never hurt like that if only I’d had the bloody sense in my head to know what it would cost. I’d not be a villain in this town, I’d not be the dead boy’s sister, I’d not be the runaway or the disappointment, I’d just be me, whatever that means- and I’d be okay with it because I’d have people around me that would make sure of it. They’d make sure I was okay.” 

She’d wondered about her — of course she had. Penny had been Fawna’s best friend, one of only three people she could be her authentic self with as she was growing up, and then, just like that… she’d been gone. She could’ve reached out by now, but why would she? What was broken was beyond mend, or so it seemed. Instead she poured her heart out to her therapist, told her fiancé all about the girl ‘who had been like a sister to her’ and how she couldn’t trust him (in the beginning), because if someone that knew her for her entire life could stab her in the back without a second thought, what would a man who had only known her for six months do? And now, here she stood on the steps she’d been on so many times, mostly hoping George would open the door instead. She’d been expecting it, this was why she’d came, she had been tasked by the town to work with her old friend. She had been expecting it, but when she was met with a second pair of painstakingly familiar eyes, she had to drop her own gaze. Never in a million years would she have thought it would be the first thing she’d say to Penny after all this time, but she asked, forcing herself to look again, “Ready to design a bunny suit?”

@penelopecar​

-

"As ready as I can be, I s’pose,” she offered in return, putting on a brave face and even managing to conjure a feeble smile in Fawna’s direction. God, it was pathetic, wasn’t it? She had so much to say to the other girl and yet the only think she could muster the courage to talk about was a bloody Easter Bunny costume that in truth, she couldn’t give a half a shit about, not when there was so much else going on around Darkwood. Still, she had to play it cool because that was, as far as she could tell, what Fawna was doing. It was a matter of pride or something as foolish as that, Penny couldn’t be the first one to burst into tears over what had happened all those years ago, not yet any way. 

She took a sharp breath inward, straightening her spine as she met Fawna’s gaze then, “Come on in then, you’ve just missed Georgie, you know,” she offered in an effort to steer the casual conversation between them. The pleasure of seeing George after all this time was surely something they could bond over. Right? Surely she had missed him just like Penny had. Maybe it hadn’t driven a painful wedge between her family and maybe it hadn’t weighed on her conscience for the remainder of the decade as it had done for Penny but the blonde had to believe that it had affected Fawna too, in one way or another.

“look, i didn’t say you were condemned to misery. i didn’t say that we had to suffer. if your brother lives and gets to be a good person, isn’t that the end of your heartache?”

in the end he has been tired for a longer time than they both remember and then some, he is tired of thinking about the fact that they’re doomed. if it’s final destination then someone has to die and if it’s not then he has no fucking idea what’s going to happen. there’s a thousand and one options and none of them are within his grasp. the only thing he can control is his own life and ending and he can’t feel bad about the rest. he’s tired of feeling bad about not figuring it out. “it’s your life. it’s not mine. be a better person, change. you’re the one who’s calling yourself so whatever i say,” he pauses, “isn’t gunna make a difference.”

-

Penelope considered MX’s question in silence as a few moments passed between them. Would it be the end of her heartache? It would certainly be the end of a good portion of it but was it truly the key to her happiness?  She’d spent several years confident that if her brother hadn’t died she would have had the life she’d dreamed of but now that she was back in 2014, with her brother still living and breathing, she still felt a certain emptiness that she couldn’t explain, though she had her suspicions. “It’s all I want,” she assured him, unable to admit that she wanted anything more.

Her arms tightened self consciously around her middle then as she digested his wisdom, “I don’t know if I know how,” she confessed, “I always thought I was a good person. Alright, at least,” she reasoned, “-but I never did make it up to Fawna, never even tried,” she admitted, uncharacteristically exposed to the male. She looked at him then, “Don’t know if she’d hear a word I have to say for m’self even if I tried,” she added, thinking aloud. “- and you MX, what about you? If I can change, there’s nothing stopping you,” she assured him, “You’ve got a good head on those shoulders of yours. You talk a truckload of bollocks, I’ll lend that but every now and then you have your moments, bloody good ones,” there was a warmth in her tone that she saved for occasions like this, “Now that you know what’s coming, what are you going to do to make sure that it don’t?” 

.

“Stop messing with my cool factor,” he drawled out. Bothered by the conversation when he had seen himself halfway across town by the time anybody had actually noticed him missing. Maybe it was a blessing that his sister had actually come outside for him, after all the lights had suddenly turned off. George couldn’t face his home anymore. His parents never ending expectations threatened to swallow him whole; taking over the family business or going into his parents career choice for him. Maybe taking a year off of school had been the wrong choice, but everything had threatened to burn him alive.

Coming home to Penny and his friends had seemed like the salvation he needed, except it hadn’t. The turns life had taken destroyed the foundation that had felt solid. An so he blamed Nik. He blamed Penny. For the hurt they had caused Fawna, and the friendship they had ruined. Childish and selfish. For he had nothing to do with it yet he still felt like he had.

“What mom and dad don’t know doesn’t hurt them,” Georgie sighed out, lifting himself from the ground. “I don’t know where I’m going, Peaches. All i know is that I know nothing anymore.”

-

“What cool factor would that be, than?” she shot back instinctively, without realising how easy it was for her to slip back into the habit of silly sibling banter with George, despite the time that had passed between them. 

She rolled her eyes at his childish response, “Aye but they will know, cos they’ll ask me,” she assured him, taking another step toward them, “-and when they do I’ll have to tell ‘em I haven’t the foggiest because my own brother more or less told me to fuck off when I asked him where he was off to in the middle of a bloody storm,” she was slightly frustrated now, the panic setting in as she considered that this storm could be the turning point for George’s new timeline. Instead of a fire, he could be struck by lightning, he could have a tree fall on it, he could be toppled over by a blind driver in the middle of the street. Anything could happen and here Penny was, stood in her own front garden, powerless to stop it. 

“What does that mean?” she asked, nerves rioting in the pit of her stomach as George spoke so candidly. “I’m not being funny, Georgie, I mean it. Come inside- or let me come with you. Just don’t go out by yourself with no idea as to where you’re going, not in this weather. If you fancy a stroll, go tomorrow,” 

the conclusions he reached were complicated, his own intelligence constrained when it came to what they were experiencing now. in the future he would of been too buzzed to care, in the future this would be a distant memory that might have happened and yet in the present moment he was aware of what was happening and the sobering reality that life and death was a line that had been crossed. for some of them it was unintentional but somebody or something somewhere knew why… that was what woke him up in the middle of the night. “i know my future, i accept my future, penny,” maybe his voice was a little too certain, too sure. maybe it was hard for others to understand how someone could see another chance for all those they had cared for and loved yet never see a second chance for themselves. mx had never wanted a chance, the first one he had wasted and this second one? it was a punishment fitting the crime of being so lousy to begin with. here he was contradicting every sane thought he’d had in his entire life or even now when he says, “but i think good people deserve a second chance. they deserve a first one. i don’t think even the universe would make them suffer twice.”

-

“You know, I’m sorry. I am,” it was strange to express condolences to somebody for their own death, particularly when it hadn’t happened yet and still, she felt obliged to say something. It was true, in fact. When she’d heard the news of MX’s death, the air was sharply drawn from her lungs and she could have sworn that her heart had skipped a beat or so. They hadn’t spoken in the years that had passed and Penny wasn’t even sure what he had been doing or where he had been living before his final moments and still, it had hurt her like it would have the death of any of her old pals, regardless of how distant their connections had become. 

Good people. She wasn’t one of those, she knew that well. “-and the rest of us, then? We’ll just suffer with nothing we can do about it?” she asked, a hint of desperation in her tone, almost as if she was begging MX to convince her otherwise for the sake of her own heartache. “There’s a short list of bastards in this town but I’m almost certain I’ve done a proper job of making sure my name is on it,” 

“ that must be the case. i’ll go ahead and admit that my own is big enough to fill a stadium. ” some people would say they ‘weren’t too big’ to admit things – most of the time, that was a lie. most of the time, it was just a way to seem humble before admitting something that would negate it. ‘i’m not too big to admit that my own is big enough to fill a stadium’ would have flowed perfectly, but it also would have been perfectly paradoxical. how nik loathed the ‘i’m not too big’ crowd.

“ ah, bloody hell, ” he sighed, unnecessary dramatics put into action already. naturally, upon asking the bartender, he was simply given an odd look with a hesitant ‘no.’ “ i was hoping you remembered the menu better than myself, not having been here in seven years and all, so i wouldn’t have had to go make another pink-collar perplexed, ” he explained, recollecting the gas station clerk he’d greatly confused only days earlier ( granted, on purpose, but nonetheless ! ). his reputation was just going to get worse than it was. even the prols he didn’t know were going to start hating him solely for confusing them all the time ! “ anyway, i assumed it was a wherever-thing, but… i must admit, this does seem a bit too dive-ish for it, ” he said, finally actually looking around and seeing mainly beer bottles and shot glasses with absolutely terrible lighting. 

-

“Your words, not mine, love,” she offered with a chuckle, though she would have said the very same if given the opportunity, though she was sure he knew that. “I’ve not been in here longer than that,” she assured him and even if she had been, she’d had other things on her mind and not the details of the bar menu. Her brother’s death for example or perhaps the breakdown of her closest friendship due, in part, to the male across from her. “Couldn’t even tell you the last time I was sat here,” she admitted and it was true. In another life she was too busy to feel sorry for herself on the cushion of a barstool, draining a cocktail by herself. She’d have been at home with her parents, busy training, ignoring her brother’s text messages or maybe even hooking up with Nik under her best friend’s nose. Now, however, she knew just where all of that bullshit would land her so why not have a drink?

Had he always been that much of a wanker? She asked herself as he turned toward the bar for a moment or so. A wanker with a great bum, she’d concede but a wanker no less. “-and yet, here we are,” she mused, raising her glass to the fact of the matter before downing the remainder of her drink. She understood now that she’d have to be slightly intoxicated at the very, very least to get through the rest of this meeting, “So get your hand off it, mate, you’ll be hung, drawn and quartered in the town square if you keep on like that. It’s 2014, you’re ‘s’posed to be a country mouse, remember? You’ll give us all away if you’re not careful,”  she reasoned, finding it easier to slip into old habits than Nik was, apparently. In London, she refined her accent as if Epping was as far north as she’d ever set foot in all her life. Now, however, surrounded by family, friends and like folk, she easily fell back into her natural cadence and something about it felt good.

After the brief scolding, she waved to the bar tender for another drink, “I won’t dare ask you how you’ve been. Seems you’ve faired better than most of us,” she knew about the film, about its success and doubted he’d suffered much, if anything the other Darkwood leavers had. “Must be your own personal nightmare to be back here though, yeah?” back here in Darkwood, back here with Penny, back here with Fawna.

“in my honest, frank opinion. it’s better to just say shit happens because if you start thinking about the current situation then you’re head’s probably gunna start spinning like the exorcist and you’ll end up in a padded room that’s nothing like the fun cave experience of bounce below,” mx told her offering a little too much information. was he wrong? maybe or maybe not, it didn’t really matter when you were trapped in a time lapse. nobody had really answered any of his theories about what time meant, whether there were unlimited chances or what exactly they were meant to change. every second new things seemed to fly into the equation and although, hidden from most, mx was a very intelligent young man, he had no fucking idea about what was happening in darkwood. “penny, if you want my advice, take the good of a second chance where ya can get it and know when to cut your losses.”

-

“My head’s already in bits,” she confessed and it was true enough. Since the morning she’d woken up in her childhood bedroom in the home of her parents, instead of in her apartment, her mind had been consumed by questions without answers.

 That might have been the first time in Penny’s life that she’d actually been dealt a good hand of advice from MX, she considered. If it was obvious that she was slightly taken aback at all by the fact, it was obvious in the way her eyebrows raised and her eyes widened ever so slightly while she digested his words. “You think it’s possible then? To change the future if given the chance?” God she hoped so, she’d prayed for a second chance to any and every deity who’d listened and now, it seemed she had it...but did it really mean anything in the grand scheme of things or were they all doomed to repeat their horrid fates? “Do you know your own future, MX? Do you know what comes next?” she asked weakly, a shiver traveling through the length of her spine as she imagined what it might feel like to know that you were going to end up foaming at the mouth, rotting on the floor.

.

for years after the matter, nik barely thought of penny. it was not so much for lack of impact ( oh, she’d had an impact – or, rather, what he did with her ), rather for purposeful distancing of himself and all his skeletons that existed within darkwood’s confines. together, penny, george, and fawna made up one of them – and one of the most noteworthy, at that. what he’d done to his friend… what he’d done to the woman he would never be able to love enough, but would always be the love of his life… oh, how he wanted to feel shame and guilt and regret like every other person. alas, every time any kind of guilty emotion showed its face, it was in the form of ‘well, clearly x was traumatized by you and your charismatic self. god, why do you have to be so damn amazing?’ 

up until the nightmares started after the film premiere. they were all stars of them.

so seeing penny in the flesh, not in the form of some snake-like creature… well, at least she wasn’t in the form of some snake-like creature. “ people always describe small towns as so quiet and quaint, ” nik prefaced as he approached her, “ but there’s more drama here than there was in los angeles. ” he leaned against the bar, wondering how long a regular conversation – a conversation as if they had just met – could last. “ do they make blood and sand here ? ”

-

She shrugged her shoulders in response to his remark, “Maybe it’s not the size of the town, just the size of the egos of the people that live there,” she suggested. She could think of a handful of locals, present company included, that had always been destined to leave Darkwood behind in a cloud of their own dust. She’d have been more shocked to hear that Nik had ever stayed in Darkwood than she would be to hear that he’d moved to the moon, truth be told. 

“Do I look like I’ve just stepped out from behind the bar t’you?” she asked facetiously, raising an eyebrow as she spoke to the male, her tone a little sharper than it had been before, “You’ll have to ask a bartender, I’ve not even heard of a Blood and Sand in all me life,” she insisted, in both this timeline and the last, in fact, “That some fancy L.A. thing?” she questioned with a light chuckle. She’d moved to London herself, had a decent apartment in a relatively posh area but somehow, L.A. still seemed so exciting and exotic to the blonde. So Nik, as well.

“ dads  probably  already  on  it , ”  she  replies  with  the  flippancy  of  someone  who’s  livelihood  wasn’t  burned  to  a  crisp.  they  were  big  fish  in  a  small  pond  and  holy  cannoli  would  always  return  even  with  some  of  their  less  favourable  pastries.  it  was  just  a  matter  of  time.  she  wasn’t  worried  about  pastries,  she  was  wondering  why  someone  had  burned  it  down  and  whether  she  had  been  a  sacrificial  lamb  on  some  bigger  vendetta  that  didn’t  seem  to  involve  her  and  her  family  at  all.  she’d  always  thought  darkwood  was  full  of  boring  normal  human  beings  but  it  seemed  she’d  missed  that  there  were  secrets  of  a  sinister  kind  and  someone  seemed  pretty  pissed.  pissed  enough  to  burn  down  a  pastry  shop  and  not  even  give  a  reason.  it  didn’t  really  make  sense.  she  rested  her  hand  on  her  hip,  a  slight  regard  for  the  blonde  in  front  of  her  but  not  much,  “ why  the  fuck  would  someone  burn  down  a  pastry  shop ? ”

-

“Well, that’s something,” she chimed, for a lack of anything more poetic to say in response. Was it a good something or a bad something? She wasn’t sure. Surely it would have cost them an awful lot to start again from scratch but perhaps their insurance policy had made it easier. She wasn’t entirely sure how all of that worked, her parents typically handled those sort of affairs after all. “You do think it was intentional then?” she asked curiously, raising an eyebrow. Sure, the possibility had crossed her mind, especially when she was sat in a cold steel chair in front of the local constable, stating her whereabouts on the evening of the fire, “Seems a strange target if you ask me,” she conceded though Ash hadn’t asked her. Still,  it wasn’t as if anybody ever had any sort of political or social vendettas against baked goods. Or maybe it was a diabetic? An anti-sugar cult, perhaps? No, that was ridiculous. “You and I’ve got enemies both but I don’t imagine anybody capable of summat like that, not in this town,” she reasoned or perhaps it was wishful thinking, naievity, in fact.

. George let the rain fall down eyes closed. Wishing everything away with every droplet that touched his skin, cleansing him of the negative emotions he had felt. Except, he knew the truth. Inside his house stood someone that added to the negative emotions he had been dealing with. He could not blame her for the way he felt but the confusion behind it all wouldn’t give him peace. The voice that floated across the hard rain, cold air, and loud noises froze him in place. Every emotion he had felt dissipated into the air, floating away onto the atmosphere. Body lowering onto the soft grass, laying back to feel the heavy drops fall on his face. “Nothing,” he called out. The thunder in the distance managed to shake the ground underneath him. Reminding him that he should face the truth once and for all; his hero wasn’t quite as heroic as he once thought. Holding people on pedestals made the fall hurt even harder. George felt selfish when he thought about it. Judging his sister due to a standard she was in. Doing something he feared others do to him. “Go back inside.”

-

“Don’t be daft,” she scolded, ignoring George’s warning as she stepped off the porch, allowing the front door to shut behind here. “It’s blowing a gale out here and it’s soon to rain. You’ll catch your death if you’re not careful- did you tell Mum and Dad you were leaving?” she asked, tightening her arms around her middle to shield herself from the cold that was setting in Darkwood that evening.

She took another step toward the male then, “C’mon, I’m not messing about. It’s a danger, going out in this weather. There’ll be trees coming down all over town and you don’t want to be caught under one of them. Can’t it wait ‘til morning? Wherever you’re going?” she asked, hoping to prompt some sort of an explanation out of him, wondering where he was heading at this hour but too stubborn to outwardly ask him more directly than that.