FOREST OF THE LOST

PART ELEVEN

19.

Wednesday twentieth of September 2017 ... and a friend, a neighbour and whatever else she may be to Terrence, arrives home from having gone to stay with family. It is seven o'clock and the evening darkness has well and truly begun to set in, to the point that streetlights are on and to a point that lights would need to be turned on at home to safely navigate one's own living space.

There would appear to be cause for concern. There are no lights on in Terrence's home and his car, the Ford Mustang he has owned for a couple of years now, rests in his driveway. Any and power outages due to the storm have been dealt with and all has been restored that needs to be restored. It is possible that Terrence has just gone for a walk, or for a drink in a local tavern or it might be possible he has simply decided to have an early night for he did say he would not do anything silly before Mary would have a chance to return home.

If he were to have himself an early night, then doing so at just seven or a little earlier would not be very likely. In the relatively short time, she has known him she has not observed Terrence to be one who would be interested in going for alcoholic beverages either for to bring home for consumption or to have out down the town alone, with her or anyone else.

Mary's own instinct tells her that he has gone to that park and if he has done this then who knows when he will be back ... if he will be back at all. She attempts to call him on his phone, it is off, and her call goes straight to voice mail. With what happened last time as in Terrence going missing for five days when he himself had been sure no more than forty five minutes had passed, Mary has made sure that she'd have access to his home in case of the possibility that an accident has occurred within it.

It comes as no great surprise that Terrence indeed is not home. There is something within his home that catches her eye, however. Checking the house over to ensure that Terrence is not home, Mary finds a notebook. Normally Mary would not even think about going through such a thing but under the circumstances she believes it is best that she has read through what Terrence had written within that notebook.

Candles, what he has written about the candles he so happens to have ... this gets her thinking. If Terrence is lost to time, if he is lost to that park, then maybe Mary can do something as with aiding him to find his way home. She may not have been able to find her own brother, but can she find Terrence?

Her brother being lost to time ... such a thing can explain quite a bit no matter how odd such a thought can be. If her neighbour has gone the same route then maybe in finding Terrence, she also finds Todd, if she can, if she does find her brother then what could that actually mean? In those notes she sees it confirmed, Terrence was indeed going back in.

***

For Terrence, prior to arriving back to that park entrance, it is Saturday morning, five days before Mary returns home from having stayed with family. Inside this park, and maybe within the proximity of the park too, time is irrelevant, time does not matter, and it may not even exist.

This has come to be obvious and clear by now from information gathered and from experience both his own and that told to him of others. Any attempt at figuring out why this time situation should be so, can only be futile and would only add to the headache that is figuring out anything he has come to know about a place that takes names and collects souls from its immediate surroundings and from who knows where else.

He comes to a halt about twenty-five feet away from the park entrance. It is not too late, he still has a choice, and he doesn't have to go in. No this is not so, if there ever had been a choice then it has long since been made, in fact there may never have been a choice at all. As he stands on the outside he may already be on the inside too as indeed time no longer matters. Sure, even looking in towards where he is about to go, he can see a difference to where it is he currently stands.