The Uninvited

leg. I would have bent it to form a foot,but in these conditions it was too fiddly. Abluish flame crept up the paper limb.‘I don’t know.’I feared he would burn his skin but hedropped the flaming paper just in time.Together we watched the little effigyblaze, shrivel to a crisp and waftsideways, disintegrating as it went.‘But you do know, Hesketh. Becauseyou are a clever man.’ He spoke urgently.I noted, in my brief connection with hiseyes, that they were so dark that pupil andiris merged into one. When people likeyou their irises grow big. When they hateyou they get small. The degree of lightmust be factored in, but dappled shade istricky to calibrate. I felt very distinctlythat this was a test. No: more than a test. A