Author's Note: Well, the flow is coming along a little better, I believe. I know this is stil dragging but take courage! A bad thing can only get better! Or does Toby find that it gets worse...

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"I'm not supposed to," Toby hissed, "If my parents found out, they'd kill me."

Greg flapped a dismissive wrist at him and hunched over the phonecall to his cousin. "Yeah," he said coolly, "Sounds great."

Two weeks had gone by before this point. Two slow, uneasy weeks for Toby that were characterised by suspicious parents, peculiar teachers, strange dreams of goblins, an even stranger figure in black and a visit to the councillor.

Dr. Grey had, according to Toby, enjoyed the saga of the junk shop manager a little too much. A mind like a sink and euphemisms for euphemisms- "Did he want anything from you, Toby? Did he do anything to worry you?"

Toby set his teeth but shrugged. "Like what?"

"Did he touch you?" Bluntly voicing what Toby's parents had been too afraid to ask.

"No!" Toby glared at anything in the room except that concerned young face. "It wasn't anything like that."

"I don't judge you, Toby. You can tell me if there was anything that worried you." There was a careful note of clinical empathy in the fluid voice. "Are you sure there's nothing you want to tell me?"

Toby had shaken his head mutinously.

What had he got to tell? John hadn't touched him. John hadn't scared him. John hadn't done anything more than be, surprisingly, fairly responsible about the whole thing. A prospective paedophile was the last thing he seemed to be.

"Your parents are very worried, you know. But how do you feel about it?"

He felt frustrated. He felt stifled. He felt as if the ghost of his lost sister was breathing down his neck.

"I guess I understand why," he muttered, "This whole thing with Sarah was so… stupid. And they want me to be safe."

"Do you remember Sarah?"

What sort of question was that?

"Yeah. Well, bits, I guess."

"What about the blood? Do you still dream about that?"

Dr. Grey had spent a lot of time talking about the blood. Toby had the almost irrepressible urge to say that, no, he hadn't dreamt about the blood but he was dreaming about goblins and what the bloody hell did that signify?

He didn't say it, naturally. But he took some comfort in thinking it.

"Tell me," Dr. Grey said.

But there was nothing to tell. Toby hadn't been let out of the house.

And who was John? Robert had 'gone to have a talk' with the man. Had phoned him from the house on a shockingly private number. Surely John would have explained whatever needed explaining? But nobody had told Toby what the explanations were. And Robert still asked his son- who was John.

Everyone wanted Toby to tell them something. As if he would know, decisively. Nobody told him but they expected him to know. How was it possible? What laws of logic had gone askew? The shouting, the yelling, the searching, scorching, scaring glances that crawled across his skin the minute he was looking at something else had made him self-aware to the point of screaming.

Who was John? Greg asked too. Even Greg, much as Toby depended on Greg.

Who was John? What was John?

A junk shop manager. Blond hair. Loss of memory. Strange eyes. Pointed teeth.

Wolfish.

Wolves were predators, weren't they? But John had certainly not been predatory. He'd been… Toby hesitated over the word. What had he been? What was John? Was it possible John had been… but wouldn't Toby have known?

He'd tried to think objectively of whether there had been some moment of strangeness. But when everything was strange it was hard to separate the fact from the fiction. Like one of Sarah's old stories. What was fantasy when Merlin was running down the street and Greg was there to laugh at him?

Toby was feeling wretchedly out of sync with his own environment.

He had gone into his parents' room- a forbidden act in itself- and snuck the number out of his mother's bedside table drawer. He'd written it on the back of the card from the junk shop and he'd stared at it for ten minutes when he'd been alone at home, sitting by the phone and thinking that he could always put his neck in the noose and call.

Just to say hi, he thought recklessly.

What would John say to that?

"Oh, come on, Toby. You're going mad sitting around here and nobody'll even know," Greg wheedled.

Toby shook his head. "No. I'm in deep shit as it is. I don't need any more trouble."

"Where's your spirit of adventure? Where's your daring? Where's your… fun?"

"I'm fun," Toby growled, stung by the acid accusation, "But I'm not getting my ass kicked from here to Tibet by my Dad when he finds out I'm going around the town with your dopey cousin and his mates."

"Hey, Eric's cool." Greg flopped down on the bed beside Toby and eyed his long face with amused grey eyes. "Guess what I found in school today."

Toby thought distractedly that Greg had the same kind of smile as John. "What?"

"Cigs."

"Huh."

"In the toilet." Greg punched him lightly in the chest. "I fucking hid them," he said daringly.

Toby raised an eyebrow in spite of himself. "Who's are they, Greg? You'll get hammered if it's those guys with the earrings."

"It's not them. But remember Henders and that tall guy with the stupid red cap? They're always hanging around that girl with the massive…"

"I remember," Toby interrupted, shifting uncomfortably. "You're mad. They're mad and they'll kill you."

Greg grinned and shrugged. "It's a joke. It's only cigarettes."

Toby considered that. It wasn't only cigarettes. Cigarettes were status symbols. If they were hidden in the toilets at school, chances were they were more than just 'only'. But still. He grinned. And then chuckled. And then caught Greg's eye and burst out laughing at the thought of the hapless boys tearing the place apart looking for a packet of cigarettes in a toilet.

They lay together on the bed and laughed for what felt like the first time in months. And then they chatted amiably about nothing, tossing a tennis ball up at the ceiling.

"So you're coming, right?"

Greg looked anxious, Toby realised. He softened a little and shrugged, not making a big deal out of the jolt to his ego. "Yeah, sure. Why not. But nothing stupid. I mean, I don't want to call my parents from the police station at midnight because your cousin decided to shoplift or something."

"No, no. Even he's not that dumb. It'll be fun, I swear."

"Fine. I'll come."

Toby felt hot and cold nursing that secret to himself. He couldn't concentrate in class and Gordon caught him daydreaming when he was supposed to read a section out loud. Everyone expected fireworks but Mr. Keiler was surprisingly mild. He said nothing, reminded Toby to pay attention, filled him in and told him to carry on.

Even Toby was surprised. Until Gordon caught him as he was leaving the room and asked him to stay back for a minute.

There was another class coming in, though the students knew by now that Mr. Keiler's classes were not to be interrupted by stampeding hordes at the sound of the bell. Gordon and Toby moved to the corridor and Gordon said nothing until they were on the stairwell and then stopped on the landing, in the corner, and fixed Toby with a steady blue gaze.

"I've noticed a woman following you," he said.

Toby almost fell over. "What?"

"Erudite as always. Williams, do you or your family have friends who follow you after school for no good reason or is there something wrong?"

"I- I don't know what… I don't know what you're talking about," Toby stuttered.

The man in black, yes. He knew about him. He'd almost persuaded himself that he was dreaming. That the hairs on the back of his neck weren't really standing on end. But a woman? What woman? Who was she? What was she? Was it true? And how did Mr. Keiler know?

"I see."

Gordon shifted his books to his other hand and tucked them against a hip. "Well, so long as this woman doesn't interfere with your schoolwork, I suppose it's really none of my business. She stays outside the school most days, as well, so I can't complain. But I would talk to your parents, if I were you."

Toby paled at the thought.

Gordon's expression grew shrewd, as if the words had been said out loud. "But you won't do that, will you. Boys never do tell things, do they. I see."

He waited politely while another teacher and a gaggle of students passed, and then chose to speak again.

"Williams, I have a feeling that I should take this up with the Principal."

"No!" Toby's lungs inflated. "No, it's okay. God, you don't have to tell the Principal!"

"Hm. Explain why." Gordon saw the boy lift a hand to his head, hold it as if it would fall off, saw the tremble in the well-shaped hands. "Purely so that I have some sort of an explanation if anything should happen, you understand."

"Nothing's going to happen."

"I'm sure. While it's happening, would you like to tell me why I should not be a good citizen and report this to the proper authorities?"

"Hey, I don't know anything about that. It's a joke, right? I mean, nobody would follow me. I didn't do anything."

"And you think I'm mistaken?"

Toby didn't reply to that but his opinion was clear enough.

"You may be right." Gordon straightened up his already straight back and gestured imperiously to the stairs. "Alright, then. I shall think about it. In the meantime, go back to class."

Toby hovered hopelessly, trying to find the words to suppress the whole business. At least until he could get his mind around it. The moment felt very surreal.

"Well?" The elegant voice was very impatient.

"Sir, it's not… I mean, you don't have to tell anyone. I didn't do anything. You must have made a mistake…"

"Williams, go back to class."

Definite annoyance. Toby moved almost unconsciously.

"But be careful. Try not to wander around town alone. Take Greg," Gordon suggested ironically, "If you two can stand to stay out of trouble. Or better yet, stay home and finish your homework."

"Yes, Sir."

Gordon nodded. He watched Toby go and then turned and went about his business. In the afternoon, Charlene Lint pushed her glasses up her noses in harried frustration as she relayed the fact that Toby Williams and Greg Symons had gotten into a fight in the toilets during lunch over a childish prank involving a packet of contraband cigarettes.

He wanted to grin but he dutifully looked reproving. And then he wanted to bang his head against the table in frustration because the boy was evidently unable to stay out of trouble at all.

Particularly, he groaned internally, when Greg was at hand.