Free Hungry Moon by Ramsey Campbell Page A

face she could manage at the receiver and dropped it into its cradle. 'When he finishes God's work he'll get round to his own,' she told Jeremy.
    'A pity we can't ask God to guarantee Benedict's work. And what had the Bevans to say for themselves? Don't lose your temper.'
    'I'm not about to lose my temper. Why should I lose my temper? There's no reason for me to lose my temper just because of people.' She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth and growled, almost screaming, and then she told him what had happened. He didn't seem to know what was best to do any more than she did; whatever they tried, she thought Andrew would be the loser. They argued about it all through dinner, though really she was arguing with herself. Eventually she admitted, T can't think.'
    'Shall we go out for a drink or walk or something?'
    'We can't if Eddings is coming.'
    'Go by yourself if you like. You've had a pretty grim day one way and another. I'll finish checking the stock and maybe catch you up later.'
    Streetlamps were lighting up in the dusk. The jagged edge of the moor above the town smouldered against the glassy purple sky. Geraldine walked quickly up the path to shake off the growing chill. How could she make the Bevans do right by Andrew? He was their responsibility, not hers. He wasn't her child. He wasn't Jonathan.
    Jonathan was safe, wherever he was. She'd told herself that in the chilly white-tiled Sheffield hospital: Jonathan was alive somewhere, and growing. She didn't need to see him, though sometimes she did, in dreams. She wished she could share her conviction with Jeremy, but the only time she'd tried he'd begun to humour her. Jonathan had felt threatened, in danger of ceasing to be, and she had never mentioned him again. She could keep him safe. It was Andrew who had to live in the real world and cope with whatever it did to him.
    She stepped onto the moor and followed the path that
    glowed dark green in the dusk. The chill of the limestone seeped up like mist through the grass. She walked faster, hugging herself, wondering why the chill should make her nervous. She was on the bare stone above the cave when she remembered and halted, shivering.
    Home from the hospital, she'd made herself give away Jonathan's clothes at once. She'd opened the chest of drawers in the room that would have been his, she'd reached in to take a handful of baby clothes, and then she'd sucked in a breath that hurt her teeth, for the clothes had felt like ice. She could feel her fingertips aching with the cold as she'd begun to shake from head to foot. She'd stood there, unable to let go or pull away, until Jeremy had found her. Later, when he'd got rid of the clothes, she'd learned that he'd felt nothing odd about them, no undue cold at all.
    The full moon trailed a rainbow halo over the clouds on the horizon. The moorland path reappeared, having faded under the sky that was now almost black. The tents on the higher slopes were chunks of ice. She hadn't known what the cold meant then, and she didn't know now - certainly not that it was so cold wherever Jonathan was - but she didn't want to be alone with that thought up here, especially when the moonlight made the landscape even bleaker. She hurried past the cave, heading for the path that led down to the far end of Moonwell. Then she faltered, for there was no longer a gritstone wall around the cave.
    In the moonlight it looked even deeper. Though she was at the edge of the stone bowl, she felt too close to the gaping dark. She started away, and a fragment of rock flew from under her heel, skittered down the bowl. For no reason she could grasp, she was terrified that it would fall into the cave. She ran for the path, stumbling, almost falling.
    The moonlight crept across the town below her, glinted on the roofs of cottages above the pools of streetlight. It followed her as she stepped over the edge toward the church. It glided over three faces in a narrow stained-glass window, made them appear to turn