Chapter 2

The sun was shining.  This was not a bad thing, just unexpected.  Critchfield was not the kind of place that it seemed the sun would shine.  It was a gloomy town, and despite the sun's best efforts the buildings remained gray, or at best brown.

The streets of Critchfield were a mish-mash of new and old.  Some were cobbled, still, and some smooth and featureless carpets of concrete.  Houses, jammed together for the most part, lined the streets in such uniform pattern that the lone boy, dragging a suitcase, who walked along had a hard time telling them apart.  He thought he'd been down this section before, but perhaps not.

The boy is Jeremy Wales.  At nine years old you could be forgiven for wondering why he was walking these lonely streets at all.  And the fact he had a suitcase in tow, well that was downright puzzling.  Or it would have been if there had been anyone about to be puzzled by it.  

For the one thing that Critchfield lacked was people.  At one point it had been a bustling little town.  Not on the sea, not a hub of industry, but a place none the less.  A welcoming place that young families came to to get their first home and raise their children.

But that was once upon a time.  This was, well, now.  And in the now Critchfield was mainly inhabited by older people - ones who decided not to, or couldn't for various and sundry reasons, leave.  The other inhabitants were families who had made the unfortunate mistake of finding a bargain house for sale and didn't investigate the surrounding area before buying.  Once bought these houses could rarely be sold.  As such, the inhabitants fell into two groups  - those who couldn't leave and those who wouldn't.

Jeremy arrived at Number 9, Crinkle Terrace.  Here lived Aunt Irma.  Aunt Irma was one of those who wouldn't. 

Jeremy consulted the crumpled bit of paper he held in his hand.  He examined the front of the house and again went to the paper.  Sadly, he was at the right address.

The house was uniformly brown.  Most likely from a combination of dirt and depression.  Jeremy imagined that this house must want to fall down, for surely he would if he was this house.  The front door hung at a precarious angle.  The front yard, what there was of it, was overgrown with grass and bushes.  A rusted metal link fence surrounded the yard, and the house, though Jeremy was having a hard time deciding if the fence was meant to keep people out or in.  If it was to keep people out then Jeremy wondered who.  Who would want to come in?

But he had no choice.  He reached his hand over the rusted gate and pulled on the latch.  He gave the gate a push.  It resisted.  It didn't want him to come in, he thought. 

He thought for a moment.  Could he run?  Where too?  He hung his head.  There was no choice.

He pushed harder and the gate swung open with an ominous creak.  Jeremy pulled the case through the gate and started down the broken, uneven, path towards the front door.

"Close the gate"

A voice came from inside the house, stopping Jeremy in his tracks.  He looked around.

"The gate.  Close it".

The voice, he presumed, was that of Aunt Irma.  He hadn't seen his aunt - his mother's oldest sister - since he was six and, quite honestly, couldn't remember what she looked or sounded like.  He had been such a child at six, he thought.

Jeremy left his case standing halfway up the path and went back to the rusty gate.  It took almost as much effort to close as it had to open.

He got back to his bag and paused, awaiting either a thank you or further instructions.  None arrived and after a moment he proceeded to pull and bump the case until he reached the front door.

He hoisted the bag up the one lone step at the front of the house.

He waited.  The door did not open.  Obviously Aunt Irma had been watching him.  Surely she would open the door.

Nothing.

He looked around and spotted a small door bell button.

Jeremy pushed the button.  From deep inside the house he heard a muffled metallic buzz.

Nothing.

He pressed his ear to the door, straining for the sounds of someone, or something, moving towards the door.

Nothing.

He pushed the button again, holding it down for a bit longer this time.  Still no sounds came from within.

He reached up to the doorbell button again.

"Don't!  You'll break it."

The voice came from behind him and made Jeremy jump in surprise.

He turned and there stood Aunt Irma.  She was a mountain of a woman, tall and wide.  She wore a bright floral dress, the kind of which Jeremy had never seen before.  It was - shapeless.

"Front doors busted," she said "come 'round the back."

Jeremy followed her along a narrow path in the grass which led around the side of the house.  It was tough going with the case, the wheels getting stuck on lumps of grass or patches of dirt.

Aunt Irma led the way silently.  She neither spoke nor turned to see if Jeremy was following her.  Jeremy followed her hulking mass obediently. 

After turning two corners they reached the back of the house.  Here was a much larger porch, with a run down railing and a broken armchair.  Both of which were brown, too, to match the house.

Irma mounted the steps and opened the back door.  The door was a screen door, or had been at one point.  Now it simply had the intricate metalwork, but no screen behind it.

Jeremy dragged his case up the two steps slowly.  It was heavy and it had been a long day.  The case scraped across the porch.

"Mind the porch" said Aunt Irma from inside.

Jeremy sighed as he opened the back door.

"Welcome home" he said.