Chapter 6: Little Indians Lost

It was when his friends started disappearing from school that Penn could no longer ignore the malignancy overtaking the village. He did not realise this with any sense of horror, and he knew that somehow his emotions, his thoughts, were being manipulated.

He could not muster any feelings for each missing soul, and, shortly after their disappearance, had a hard time remembering their very existence. Intellectually, he knew that something was not right, that children should not go missing, that someone, or some thing, was taking them. Perhaps it was something evil, and some strange mechanism was preventing its detection.

When Tommy Flowers disappeared, his mother also stopped appearing in the village. Penn immediately wrote his name down on the back page of his notebook, which he saw every day, and decided he would enter the name of every missing person. To make sure, he made a note on the first page reminding himself of his plan.

It was difficult. With every attempt to preserve a name, or indeed any memory, and Penn's mind would empty of it faster. He never let the book out of his sight, and kept on forgetting why there was a note in the front referring him to the back page. Somehow he kept this fragile chain of events going, and was continually reminded of those who had been lost. It seemed like the strange influence could not shield all indirections.

He tried to tell Dee and Madeleine of his scheme, but they soon forgot about it, and would remember nothing about it by the next time they met. Penn felt that his hold on reality was becoming tenuous, and it took all of his will to hang on to the loose threads of his past.

On the days that Penn visited Tsanja for their regular meetings, Penn could see that Tsanja looked confused, as she kept coming across reminders of all that had changed. She was tired, and increasingly relied upon Penn for emotional support. As with Penn, Tsanja could not muster any emotional connection to the missing children, and the conversations he had with her were very strange, an objective examination of what had been happening, and ideas about what to do about it, but no fire, no passion to discover the missing children, no manifestation of any instinct to protect those that remained.

She was very affectionate towards him in these meetings, as if holding Penn could make up for the new vacancies in her heart, and she locked her study in the Church while they were meeting, as if she wanted privacy, or didn't want to be disturbed.

Caley Finn was the next to disappear, then John Caley.

Penn also noted a reminder in his notebook to ask Madeleine if they could use her mirror. It had not seen very much use now that they had other things to do in her bedroom.

Before he saw Madeleine again, he knew that he could not recall why it was important, but he somehow managed to convince himself so, and that he should look up his notebook, which he took everywhere with him, and to bring Dee, who somehow seemed better able to cope with the daily assaults on their sense of reality.

When Dee and Penn were sitting with Madeleine on her bed that afternoon, all revising their homework for once, Penn saw the note in his book, and fleetingly remembered one of those who had gone missing. He directly addressed the mirror.

"Tommy Flowers"

The mist cleared, but the image was very dark. Tommy's face was visible in the gloom, but he seemed to be asleep. His head was bandaged above his eyes, and much of his face was in shadow.

They studied the image for some time, but the boy was motionless, and there were no clues as to his whereabouts.