The mist was thick enough to serve in a bowl with a thick slab of homemade bread and colder than a robin's feet at Christmas. April was not shaping up to be a good month and it looked like spring was going to last forever, barely discernible from the winter that throttled last year's autumn.
Seasons around here do not go gentle into that good night and neither do the folk. The night air so often carries shrieking winds and human voices alike that help is hardly called for and every other business is a funeral home of some sort.
Here's the kind of place you see on a postcard and think "Halloween's a good few months away" while repressing a shudder and hoping its just an advert for some movie you'll probably never see. Here's the kind of place you visit for a dare though your winnings feel less than worth the risk.
Here's the kind of place where reality's a little... lax. People are only assumed to be human until they prove otherwise and they very frequently do. They'll smile with a mouth that doesn't bend right, laugh like an entire audience or carry things with unseen arms.
The buildings are as much a lottery as the people - assume it's a post office because it looks like one and is labelled like one until you open the door and find yourself midway over the bridge leading back to the highway. Makes it pretty clear when you aren't wanted.
If you're fortunate enough you'll leave the way you came, all in one piece and scarcely remembering where those five hours went. If your fortune goes the same way spring has you'll find yourself staying in the local B&B, always waiting for someone to come and repair your car.
They'll be here in the morning.
With any luck.
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