Chapter Text
~ Day 2 ~
It was odd for Bridgerton House to be so quiet.
Penelope’s footsteps echoed with an abnormal hollowness as she followed Mrs. Wilson across the polished wood floor of the grand foyer, past cream painted walls with their familiar reliefs of doric columns and crests, under the ornate brass chandelier that suddenly seemed dull in the morning sunlight, up the main stairs that she was certain were moaning in grief as she ascended, diverting from the family drawing room which was unsettlingly unused, to the east wing where the redhead had scampered and played as a child but had not been to visit in quite some time.
She continued to follow the housekeeper for a few more paces before the pair stopped at a door that was as familiar to Penelope as the back of her hand, although what lay beyond the threshold was a mystery. Mrs. Wilson knocked almost hesitantly, not waiting for a response as she opened the door and invited Penelope to step inside. She was able to muster a half-hearted smile for the young woman before gently shutting the door after her. Normally, Penelope would be unable to help herself from surveying a new space, noting the details and committing them to memory for further reflection at a later time, but in this instance, probably the only one of its kind, she was able to curb her natural curiosity in favour of keeping her eyes trained on the other person in the room who had risen from her vigil by the window upon her entry.
Eloise looked devastated, her hair still in the braid she’d barely slept in, her dress sitting oddly on her shoulders as if she’d been tugging at the neckline (an anxious tick she’d had ever since her Papa had passed), lips chewed red while her fingers were stained with the distinct ruddy residue of tobacco. She seemed surprised to see Penelope, but that minor alarm almost immediately melted away into crushing, vulnerable gratitude.
“I needn’t stay long, and I don’t mean to be a bother,” Penelope began cautiously, gazing upon the dried tear caked cheeks of her once close friend. “It is only I had to see if there was anything I could do –”
But before Penelope was able to say another word, Eloise threw herself into her arms, hugging her desperately as she laid her head atop the shorter woman’s ginger curls.
“Thank you,” Eloise muttered. “For coming…I…I am glad you are here.”
“Me too,” Penelope replied, squeezing Eloise with a ferocious desperation tinged with a conflicting brew of glee and sorrow.
She had missed her friend so much, had missed them. She’d spent the summer wishing that Eloise would reach out, that she might want to listen, to try and understand – to want to understand – but every letter, every glance, every tentative olive branch Penelope extended had been harshly rejected. But now the two were in each other’s embrace once more and the months of estrangement vanished as swiftly as a snowflake upon the skin.
It was unfair how tragedy had a way of opening one’s heart to what is truly important.
“I only didn’t come sooner because the accident was just yesterday and I had hoped…” Penelope trailed off, unable to force the words past her lips.
“We all did,” Eloise agreed, releasing Penelope and turning to look at the prone figure in the bed that was the very cause of the heartbreak that saturated every nail, fiber, and window of Bridgerton House.
For being the tallest of all the Bridgerton children, Colin had never looked as small as he did tucked in his bed. The golden sheets had been pulled up to his waist, his head was cushioned upon two pillows, and his arms were laid out at his sides, enclosed in a sterile white nightshirt. He was breathing deeply, slowly, and his expression was lax with not a trace of grimace or wince which gave Penelope great relief.
He wasn’t in pain, something she’d been worrying over since he’d been hurt.
“What has the doctor said?” she asked timidly, already hating the bad news she was sure was to come.
“Three broken ribs, both ankles sprained, a turned knee, one broken toe, a dislocated shoulder, bruises across his body, and eight stitches to the cut at his temple. Apparently, all this is actually a miracle,” the brunette sneered, too caught up in her indignation to note how pale Penelope had gone with every injury listed. “The doctor expected much more damage considering the circ*mstances. The worst part is that there could be still. He and his assistant have already been over thrice to check for signs of internal bleeding.”
“There haven’t been any?!” Penelope gasped, feeling as if her own heart might rupture at the very idea of Colin suffering, Colin injured…Colin dying.
“You should sit,” Eloise offered, finally realizing how distressing the news was for Penelope. She led the redhead to a small sitting area just beyond the foot of the bed. The young woman tried to recline gracefully, but she more or less collapsed into the chair and braced her hands on the round table, needing to take a few great gulps of air before raising her gaze to address Eloise.
“Does the doctor think it is hopeless?” she managed to ask, fearful that the answer would be crushing, but also certain she would never be able to take another breath until she knew.
“Not hopeless,” Eloise said, though her tone was uncoloured of optimism. “It all depends on his waking up. The longer he sleeps the less likely…” Eloise stopped herself from continuing, sniffing wetly and turning back to look at her bedridden brother, as if her hard, desperate glare would shake him from the depths of unconsciousness.
With a reflexivity refined over ten years of friendship that could never be erased no matter the hurts that had divided them, Penelope reached out and took Eloise’s hand and squeezed tight. Eloise did not flinch away and instead returned the supportive touch. And in that silent acceptance, forgiveness was given for offences committed by both parties, allowing for true healing to begin at last.
Hand-in-hand, the reunited friends watched over Colin in his bed, counting every breath he took. That was how the Dowager Viscountess found the pair when she entered the room a few minutes later.
“Oh! Penelope, how good you are here,” Violet greeted, trying to offer her guest a welcoming smile but the strain only highlighted her anguish. “Eloise, Anthony and Kate have just returned. Would you like to greet them? I will stay with your brother.”
“I can stay.”
Penelope made the offer without conscious thought, the words past her lips before she even realized it. But when she saw the tired appreciation in Violet’s eyes she was glad for speaking out.
“I truly don’t mind,” she continued. “If I can help in any way, please make use of me. I can stay while you greet the Viscount and Viscountess.”
“It is so good to see you, Penelope,” Violet confessed, and it was clear the matron meant more than just this moment. It nearly made Penelope cry to think that the Bridgertons may have missed her as much as she’d missed them. “We shan’t be long.”
“Take all the time you need.”
“Oh! You must talk to him, dear,” Violet exclaimed before she and Eloise fully exited the room.
“Talk to Colin? But he is asleep.”
“Unconscious,” Violet kindly corrected. “The doctor says it’s possible Colin is able to hear us. You two have always been such good friends. I’m sure it will bring him comfort to hear a familiar voice. Perhaps enough that he might...he might…”
“What should I say?” Penelope asked unable to watch the woman she admired as a daughter would a mother struggle against tears brimming with hope and hopelessness.
“Let him know you are here,” Violet suggested, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief Eloise had passed to her. “Tell him about your day, share jokes – you’ve always been able to make him laugh so easily – or read to him. Only I don’t want him to feel alone so please…just talk to him.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Come, Mama,” Eloise guided in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. “Let’s go welcome my brother and sister.”
They closed the door as they left, the clicking of the latch sounding more like a faded echo to Penelope’s ears for all she could do was look upon the cataleptic form of the man who’d held her heart for half her life and it was as if the earth has stopped spinning, time slowed, and all there was left in the world was her and him and the chasm of frantic disquiet that choked the air.
“Oh Colin…” she sighed brokenly, at last allowing her shoulders to shake as she cried silently, biting the inside of her cheek to keep most of the tears at bay, though a few did manage to trail down her nose. She did her best to blink her sorrow away, focusing on the room for the first time since crossing the threshold, desperate to occupy her mind with anything other than the grim image of her beloved in his sickbed.
She’d never been in Colin’s bedroom before. She thought the chamber a perfect reflection of him. It was well tailored, lived in, the décor thoughtfully selected, the mementos on display clearly personal, and simply being in the space made one feel almost immediately comfortable, much like the master of the chamber could make even the most cantankerous sort be at ease when in his company.
Then there were the details.
The wallpaper was a rich navy with a garland pattern that reminded Penelope of the gardens of Aubrey Hall. The carpet was Turkish and had marvelous emerald and plum threads woven into a pleasing design that was at once captivating and mysterious. The pale lemon curtains had been pulled back to let in the sunlight like a sliver of cheeriness, the rays warming every surface they reached. His desk was tucked by a corner window and was positively overflowing with maps, shells from Brighton and pebbles from Dover, a few loose coins and bank notes, a brass telescope she remembered him getting for his fifteenth birthday from his Uncle Edward, a wooden horse with hollow belly for tin soldiers to be stored, quills, pencils and an expensive steel pen, bottles of ink in a variety of colours, a well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice, and a stack of letters tied tight with a green ribbon laid face-down so that she couldn’t see who they were to or from. As for the wall opposite the desk, a juvenile drawing of the Bridgerton family in front of an oblong shaped structure Penelope couldn’t decided was Aubrey Hall or not had been pinned alongside a crooked portrait of a boy with a big smile and sweeping brown hair holding a singular giant daisy (the painting had been proudly signed by the artist: Eloise Marigold Bridgerton, Age 10). Other pieces of art decorated the nook: sketches of Violet, a platter of biscuits, and Colin in profile with an overlong nose, a crumpled sheet that had a schoolroom lesson on Latin translation, and a list of various European cities, some with checks beside them, some without. The list was pinned in the centre of this mismatched gallery and would be perfectly eye-level for Colin to review any time he sat at the desk.
Undoubtedly, this corner and its menagerie of memories old and new was a place of peace for Colin. It gladdened Penelope’s heart that he had such comfort. There were no tokens from family in her chambers, no silly drawings from her sisters or old school lessons or lists of exotic ports. There was only the necessities: a bed, a desk, a mirror, a bookshelf, a wardrobe, and under the floorboards a box with nearly twelve thousand pounds, copies of every edition of Lady Whistledown since its first publication, and a stack of letters tied tight with twine. The correspondence varied, some from Eloise, some from Aunt Petunia, even a rare letter from her father when he’d left one summer for Ireland while the rest of the family had remained at their country seat in Kent. And then there were the letters from Colin, of course, from the first he’d written to her after they’d met as children to the last one he’d sent which had remained sealed along with the other dozen he’d posted to her over the past summer. Those were Penelope’s treasures, her dearest keepsakes, and none could be allowed to be laid out in prominent and proud display.
Like everything else, the things Penelope Featherington loved most dearly had to be kept hidden.
But now was not the time for morose contemplation. This vigil was not about her, but rather Colin, her dear old friend, her childhood playmate, the keeper of her heart, though he didn’t know it.
Unable to avoid the moment any longer, Penelope both mustered her courage and repressed her grief, and finally approached Colin’s bed, gingerly taking a seat upon a stool that had been propped at the bedside.
He looked pale, his hair limp, one of his curls twisting over his brow making him seem so much more like the ten-year-old boy she’d met in the park instead of the twenty-two-year-old man whose selfless bravery had resulted in him being bedridden and comatose.
It ached to look at him.
But he was hurt, he needed support, and now it was Penelope’s turn to be brave.
“Well now, this isn’t well done of you at all, sir,” she whispered tenderly, blue eyes flickering to the stitches at the hairline of his left temple, the fibers blending in with his chestnut curls. “Another scar for your collection, then.”
Like a moth to a flame, Penelope’s gaze was drawn to the faded pink scratch just under Colin’s jaw. He’d earned that blemish the day they’d met, having caught his chin on the horn of his saddle when he’d toppled off his horse after her bonnet had slapped him in the face. It was as if a tattoo of that fateful day was stamped upon his body. She delicately traced the line with the pad of her thumb and wondered if he could feel her touch in his strange, sickly sleep.
“You asked me recently if I recalled when we met,” she began, speaking softly, like she used to when they were young and would tramp through Bridgerton House with Eloise and Francesca, spying on the adults as they discussed topics like horse breeding or tenant rents or doweries.
“I remember that day so vividly. I remember Prudence had made me cry at breakfast by calling me pudgy and stealing the last potato cake, and I was cross with Mama for forgetting a trunk of my toys back at our Kent estate when we moved house to London that spring, and – I never told anyone this – but I was terribly lonely because it was to be my birthday in two days and I hadn’t a friend in the world.
“And then I met you.”
Penelope couldn’t help smiling as her body filled with the lovely warmth that had always infused her being whenever she was with the Bridgertons. Caught up in that feeling, she let her touch drift from Colin’s chin to trickle down the side of his neck, unencumbered and open to the air, giving her leave to follow his collarbone to his shoulder where she cupped the warm curve in her palm and gave the lightest squeeze.
“I met you and your wonderful family with parents who did not reproach me for being the cause of your tumble and sisters who were complementary of my horrid yellow gown and older brothers who teased you for falling at the feet of a lady. But you didn’t lash out with shame or anger. You called me pretty – no one had ever done that before. You laughed when I joined in with your siblings’ ribbing and teased you about the mud on your cheek and in your hair. You apologized for sullying my bonnet and even agreed to buy me one hundred more. You made me feel as if…as if I mattered. And until that moment, I had never mattered to anyone.”
Though the sentiment was heartbreaking to hear out loud it was no less true now as it had been twelve years ago. And when she thought on it, that spring day in Hyde Park was the moment Penelope Featherington had fallen in love with Colin Bridgerton.
Her heart swelled in her chest with how much she loved him, the feeling sending a mad desperation throughout Penelope’s soul, allowing her to impulsively slide her hand down Colin’s right arm to his elbow and then his wrist, but before her fingers could stretch further to caress the knuckles of his lifeless hand she stopped herself, flinching as if she’d been burned.
She couldn’t hold his hand, not again, not after…
“You must wake up, Colin,” she beseeched, curling her fingers into her palm and returning her hand to her lap. “Wake up and I will tease you and you will make me laugh and all will be as it has always been between us. Please…wake up, Colin. You simply must…”
Colin knew he was dreaming.
What gave it away was that he was riding Dumpling, an old gelding that had been his first horse. She was an even-tempered creature that never bucked or fought him for control and loved to eat apples almost as much as he did.
She was also dead and had been for eight years.
Yet here she was, alive and warm, her salt and pepper spotted coat gleaming as if she’d just been brushed down, her mane braided with the ribbons Daphne loved to twist upon all the horses in the Bridgerton mews, and her ribs firm between his knees which, Colin noticed, were clad in evergreen britches the style of which he had not worn since before leaving for Eton.
The woods he and Dumpling tramped through were the lush flora that surrounded Aubrey Hall. As they trotted they passed by trees Colin remembered climbing with Gregory, meandered along the bank of a shallow creek where he’d taught his sisters how to catch frogs, and galloped over the vast estate’s western gardens with the covered gazebo near the lake where he would take tea with his mother. And while the scenery was familiar, comforting even, Colin knew he was not truly at Aubrey Hall.
The air, for starters, was not the crisp clean flavour of the Kent countryside, but rather it tasted like the dockyards, heavy with salt and the pong of fish. He was even certain he could hear a faint rumble of sailors cursing and laughing and shouting orders, but it was difficult to focus on much more than the stamped clip-clop of Dumpling’s hooves because they were not traversing over grass and brush any longer but rather the white pristine cobblestones of Mayfair. Colin was even sure that the garden he was now passing was actually the large manicured park that dominated Grosvenor Square. The giant fir trees cast shadows over the street like long tapers and a whisp of red and yellow amongst the midnight green topiary caught his eye before quickly dashing away. The colours had reminded him of something…someone.
The haunting lament of several gulls suddenly filled the air and Colin knew he couldn’t be in Mayfair because it was only the sweet chirp of swallows that made music in the area. Everything just felt so impossible and confused, even for a dream, and it made his head ache. He wanted this unreality to make some sort of sense, and he couldn’t explain why, but he thought if he followed the figure in yellow then he might be able to better understand his dreamscape.
Like a compass needle pulled north, Colin urged Dumpling in the direction of the fir where the citrus mirage had vanished, wondering if he might find himself at the seaside once they trotted to the centre of the square’s park. However, instead of being met with lapping waters, Colin found himself in the middle of Rotten Row.
The packed dirt path was lined with ashes, maples, hazels and, surprisingly, the spindly cork oaks he’d admired in Ávila. Each branch was in the first blush of spring and dotted with buds just beginning to sprout. The scent of rain and mud caked the air, and Colin was sure that he could hear his father’s familiar timber in the distance, laughing at him to slow down.
But that is when Colin remembered, he’d won the race!
It all came back to him like an avalanche, making his already tender head spin.
He remembered that last spring with Edmund Bridgerton, how he would take his four eldest children for rides in Hyde Park almost every afternoon and would encourage a race just before they were due to meet Mama and the younger ones for tea along the Serpentine. Colin had never won a race before, both Anthony and Benedict having more years’ riding experience while Daphne seemed to be a natural equestrian, not to mention ferociously competitive.
But on this cool April day, for the first time ever, Colin had overtaken his siblings and was the undisputed victor of the hour. He and Dumpling were now trotting co*ckily ahead, waiting for the others to catch up, their canter slow and easy.
And that was when Colin realized that all this time he’d been dreaming, he was not the broad, strapping man of twenty-two he knew himself to be, but rather the lanky and lean lad of ten he once was. There were no whiskers on his chin, no muscles to speak of in his thighs or arms, and his hair was cropped rather short, his ears going red as a strong, icy spring breeze suddenly whipped past him. It ruffled his curls and stung his eyes, and yet Colin could not help but smile despite the discomfort because he knew that on that wind something special was coming to him.
His dreams and his memories had conspired to take him back to that day.
The day he would meet his favourite person.
And even though he anticipated it, Colin was still taken by surprise when a devilishly yellow bonnet with too many bows slapped him in the face and blinded him. He yelped as he lost his balance and slipped off Dumpling’s back, the gelding continuing on her merry way and quite content to be rid of her passenger. Colin’s fall was not a dramatic tumble, the strange physics of his dream treating his body as if he were as light as a feather, swaying him as a mother would rock a babe until he was gently deposited in a large, sticky mud puddle. His lanky body sunk into the soft, moist earth with a wet squish. He was annoyed that his dream included the bitterly chilling sensation of damp muck under his bottom, a chill so penetrating as to make his teeth chatter and his body sore from head to toe. It made him wonder if perhaps this was all truly real.
But of course, it wasn’t.
It wasn’t real because Dumpling was dead, his father was dead, Colin wasn’t ten, it wasn’t April, and the bonnet that had struck him had burst into hundreds of buttercups the moment he’d landed in the dirt, the yellow petals falling about him like confetti.
He heard a cry of distress, one that set his heart beating like a drum, and he looked down the road to the tiny figure of the owner of the hat that had attacked him, smiling as he watched her tight red ringlets bounce as she hurried his way.
Penelope Featherington had been a sweet child, all roundness and dynamism, the sort of adorable moppet one could only be at eight-years-old. Colin remembered how he had liked her rather immediately the day they’d met, so caught up in her attention as she’d fussed and teased over him that he hadn’t even noticed his chin was bleeding until she’d exclaimed so, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket to help quell the blood. He was actually fairly certain he had kept the little pink square with embroidered daisies and that it was stowed away at the bottom of some old toy chest in the nursery at Bridgerton House. When the dream was over and he woke up, he would have to search for it and return it to its rightful owner. He knew Penelope would laugh when presented with the cloth twelve years after the fact.
And he so did enjoy making her laugh.
He waited eagerly as the little girl made her way towards him, but as she drew closer she started to change, each few steps in his direction seeming to add a year to her appearance. Colin watched as Penelope’s juvenile frame shifted, curves suddenly sprouting where there had been none before, curls darkening, freckles fading, the uncoordinated run transitioning into a jolly skip, then a dainty step, until finally she moved with the grace and sway of a woman. When she was at last standing before him, she was the lovely nineteen-year-old that had been occupying his every thought almost since the moment he’d returned to England. Her hair was a copper waterfall that flowed down her back and her dress was the same shimmering ivory she’d worn that night in the garden…the night of their kiss.
He wanted to warn her that the mud might ruin her gown, but it was if the earth itself was averse to sullying this radiant goddess as not a speck of dirt stuck to her skirts or skin when she crouched beside him and laughed.
“Well now, this isn’t well done of you at all, sir,” she commented, somewhat scolding, somewhat amused, somewhat sad.
“Isn’t it?” Colin countered congenially, putting on his best smile. “And I suppose you didn’t mean for your bonnet to assault me?”
“You can’t blame me for the wind!”
“Not blame, but surely an apology for my tumble is in order?”
“Very well, I am sorry that you got in the way of my runaway bonnet, but I am ever so thankful that you caught it.”
And at her words, the buttercups surrounding Colin magically assembled into the wayward bonnet, bows and all!
“This is a pretty hat for a pretty girl,” he complimented, his words bringing a flush to Penelope’s cheeks. She’d been so shy back then, but twelve years of friendship had cured her of much of that bashfulness, at least with him. Still, he’d always admired her prettiness when she blushed, the rosy vibrancy of her cheeks making the freckles on her nose stand out all the more. It made Colin itch to trace them, but he settled for counting them instead.
However, before he could even begin his tally, Penelope leaned towards him, so close he could smell her rosehip soap, and Colin couldn’t help but gasp when she laid the very tip of her thumb upon his chin. Her caress was gentle, careful, and when she was done with his chin her touch made a slow trail down his neck, then to his right shoulder, over his arm, but before she could touch his hand she stopped.
The sensation of her tentative stroke was so electrifying, so sensational, Colin wondered if she might actually be caressing him as he dreamed, his own titian angel guarding him while he slept. Her touch felt so different from anything else he’d experienced in the dream so far, as if his heart was being tugged on by a magnet the closer Penelope’s hand had wandered near his, but when she’d pulled away that propelling sensation ebbed and disappeared, the tide retreating from the moon.
“…mud on your cheek and in your hair,” Penelope said, jolting Colin from his musings on the odd vibrations coursing throughout his body.
As if his dream was her servant, he suddenly felt the mud on his cheek, grungy and drying and making his skin itch, and the cool, thick dollops of moist dirt in his hair drip down his neck, giving him the shivers.
“I mustn’t look much better than a pig at the fair,” he joked, but the jest did not move Penelope to smile. Instead, her blue eyes were glassy with held back tears and her plush pink lips were curved in a furrowed frown. “Why do you seem so sad?” he wondered.
“You must wake up, Colin,” she begged.
“But this is a good dream,” he argued gently, hoping to charm Penelope into letting him linger in the fantasy for a few minutes more.
“Wake up…” she implored again.
“I will,” he promised. “But it is so lovely here,” he sighed, looking down the wide path and spotting his father, brothers and Daphne in the distance. They had stopped at the bend to wait for him, and he could hear his mother announce that tea was ready, and the promise of biscuits and sandwiches and time with his family under their big tent where they could be forever happy was simply too wonderful a moment to let slip by, even in a dream. “I think I should like to stay, just a little longer. You should stay too, Pen.”
“Please…wake up, Colin.”
“Not yet,” he stressed, thrusting the bonnet into her hands. “Soon, I promise, just not yet.”
He watched as she sniffed back more tears and her shoulders shook in silent sorrow. The same guilt he’d felt when she’d revealed she’d thought him cruel for his thoughtless proclamation the Season before seemed to strike him in the chest, just over his heart, and Colin felt as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. He couldn’t bear to see her cry, but even more, he couldn’t bear to be the reason for her tears. If waking up was what would cure Pen’s sorrow, then he would simply have to shake himself from his dreams and rouse.
“Miss Featherington,” Anthony’s voice suddenly intoned solemnly, though from where Colin couldn’t decipher because his eldest brother was nowhere near them but rather yards away, dawdling at the other end of the park. His voice sounded as if it were reverberating down a tunnel, the words jumping everywhere all at once. “Thank you for your kindness in staying. I hope you don’t mind, but Kate and I should like a moment alone with –”
“Of course, I will take my leave,” Penelope said, her voice carrying the same resonating oddness as Anthony’s, but what was rather more unsettling was the fact that her mouth did not move even as her words rang about them with the haunting depth of church bells.
“Don’t go, Pen,” Colin begged, wanting to reach for her, wanting her to reach for him, but it was as if his limbs had become weighted and when he moved his hand so that he might take hers, it felt like trying to move through water, resistant and slow.
“I should like to visit again tomorrow,” he heard her say, but again her words sounded more like an echo getting further and further away. He started to panic.
“Yes! Yes please!” he beseeched, struggling against whatever strange gravity was being forced upon his body, keeping him glued in the mud. “Come back as often as you like! Or better still, stay with me, Pen.”
“I’ll come back,” she promised, and the fact the words came from her lips this time made Colin believe her and he began to relax.
“Promise?” he checked, thinking his voice sounded very young and very hurt.
“I promise. I’ll come back soon.”
And then she placed her bonnet back on her head and her body shifted from the woman he knew to the little girl he’d known, and with a final giggle, she burst into a million brilliant buttercups, but before a single blossom could settle upon the grass their dainty yellow petals began to flap like the rapid wings of a butterfly, their strong flutter whipping the wind violently, making his muddy curls dance and his own teary eyes sting.
Colin tried to reach out and catch one of the buttercup butterflies before they flew away, but a sharp, stabbing pain was suddenly pinching at his right palm, and he flinched back, noting that not only had his hand returned to that of a man’s (as had the rest of his body), but there was a deep cut marring the skin. Blood drooled lazily from the wound, and as he stared at it in quiet contemplation for an untold number of heartbeats a great round shadow began to darken the park.
When Colin looked up all he could see in the sky was a hot air balloon slowly eclipsing the sun.
