Bag of Weasels. Chapter 18

The heat from the fire got into me and I slumped down and drowsed in my rags, watching the flames make patterns and castles and creatures that came and went. Ralph was rolled up in a giant heap with a sack over his head.
It was a fine big fire that attracted another who shuffled down between me and Ralph.
I didn't look over but heard his laboured breathing. Then he hacked up his lungs and hawked something lumpy into the fire where it sizzled and popped like a sausage. I glanced over and all I could see was a wide brimmed hat, and the grease-shiny clothes of a long time outsider.
"You like the fire, Sunny. A throaty coughed voice came from under the hat. An accent , from up in the north, I guessed.
"Draws you in does it, Sunny?
I was sure I'd never met this one.
"Yeah, it does¦. I was going to ask him there and then, how he knew my name, but he lifted his hat and I saw underneath, the oldest face in the world. Eyes I could hardly see from within layers and folds of wrinkled skin. Wrinkles that splayed out from the eyes and turned back into folds that dropped from his cheeks and chin. Skin and bone, but lots of skin, like the old leather you find discarded outside charity shops.
"About bloody time, he coughed. "About bloody time the fires were lit. The shout's gone up at last. Thought Id never see it. And I've waited through the years, Sunny. Watched and waited, in the wings. About bloody time Sunny. About bloody time.
We sat in silence, watching the flames. I could see them dancing clearly, separate licks jumping up and twisting round each other. The old man shifted his weight and groaned. "My bones ache tonight. I've walked so much. When I'm still I remember how far I've walked. But when I'm out there walking I'm young again. Better than young. Alive like I'd never known in my youth. Not til I knew where to walk.
"Where's that, then? I had to ask.
"I walk the lines Sunny, like all of us. Like you. Difference is, I know it now, though. Walked 'em for years beyond counting.
My ears were on his words and my eyes were on the fire, and the two merged together and I sank in.
"This time round, when I was who I was, I walked in from Epping. That was a road trip to remember. That's when I became a real walker. When the old power came up to me and joined with me. Walked next to me in to the city.
In the fire I saw a man in rags, walking with a man in flame. Down a sunny, fairy story country lane, far away long time ago. I drifted further in.
"I left the old me sleeping in the woods. He'd never have made it this far. Never have gone on to walk the lines and bring them back enough for you to know, Sunny, that's for sure.
He leaned in even closer; he smelled like the smoke from the fire. "You have to trust it Sunny. Instinct, now that's just great Sunny, we are all running on instinct here.
But you've got something else. You see patterns, don't ya? You fill in the gaps between the points, you draw the lines, you see where they are.
Now, all you got to do is do it large. Then all you have to do is trace them with your own sweet self.
He nodded in the direction of the sleeping Ralph's back. "Your compadre there, he's got a good feel for it. He's strong too; strong enough for both of you, but you've got the eye for it. Like them dogs. You seen them dogs? They're sight hounds Sunny. The best. Clever, sharp. Use their eyes, not their nose.
The flames jumped round and chased their tails.
I felt heavy, sleepy and shut my eyes, but could still hear his voice: "Just remember, tread down deep. Keep your nose clean, and keep as safe and warm as you can.
I dozed back into the fire's heat and when I came back up he'd gone.
But where he'd sat was a heap of papers, like he'd changed himself into them.
I sat still dozy, slumped under my blanket as a breeze flicked the top pages over to the red-grey smoulder of the fire's edge, so I kicked out my foot and brought it down to drag them clear, but a corner had caught and a flame leaped up from it.
I chucked off the blanket and snatched the papers to me, smacked them against the floor and swept dirt over them. Spanked the life out of the baby flame and smothered it dead.
I brushed the papers and waved them about but the dirt stayed. I looked closer, felt the paper. It was rough, lumpy, catching the dirt, and the sides weren't sharp and straight. They were ragged, with wild fuzzy hairs and fibres poking out, and the corners were rounded, with more fuzz and fibres. It was like old paper snot-rag got drenched in the rain then found in a pocket, dried out, days later. A knocked together touch.
The text talked to me:

"It's been a long time to get here and a long time yet to come. You walked out
of the past to keep the monsters out, but your wandering takes its toll. Alone in
a crowd of lonely people, the city takes you in. The river showed you what
can lie outside. Outside here, Outside the present.
But they will try to take you back.
I know you are scared. Scared of everything. Scared of yourself.
You do not trust yourself.
You must trust.
You must believe. You must let go. You must step in.
The cold and the wet and the hunger and the sadness,
the worries and the ghosts and the nagging thoughts in the back of your mind,
as you wander down more bleak streets to nowhere.
It ends here. Where I begin.
I am back again, but never left. I walked with you through those streets.
I watched you go to fetch the Big Man.
I sailed with you back into the Great Stink, and through the streets
under watch from Dead Harmony.
I saw them.
I saw you. You saw the signs, you read the signs, you joined with the signs.
My signs.
And you stayed on the path.
On the line.
You are where you should be.
Believe.
In light.
In me."

I dropped it in the fire.
I didn't want to get sucked into something monstrous, something that took me places downright scary, which was pretty much how this all felt. I generally kept well clear of this sort of malarkey; it meant letting go of my signposts for getting by. I had my routines and habits of shifting, stopping and shifting again, any old way, skating over the deep confusions, over anything that worried me, nagged at lost memories and thoughts hiding in the outback. My routines were being undermined.
I didn't want to get lost in something.
I didn't know which way to go.
No-one would believe me.
Conspiracies are evil; they made me the man I am today.