Work Text:
Something is different this year. Something that we can all feel. Twenty eight years I been working here and I tell you, it ain’t been like this since... well, not long after I started. Let me tell you, it was bad then. I’d only been here near five years. It had been uncomfortable, but it didn’t get really bad until after they’d found ol’ Mervyn Entwhistle, our own Rober Entwhistle’s grand-da, lying on his back near the tracks, staring up at the rafters like he was shocked, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing before he died. Yeah, he was dead, didn’t I mention? Not a mark on ‘im, but there was this funny smoky thing in the sky, and for a minute, when I was lookin’ up at it, it looked like something Like, I dunno, a head with a really long tongue. Or... a skull.
Bah, I don’t remember. But... everything got dark, everyone got nervous, and even them what showed up on September 1st, they was all quiet and nervous, and... there weren’t as many of ‘em. And I’m reminded of that now. It’s been an uncanny summer. Cold, foggy... everyone’s sayin’ it’s that global warming messin’ the weather up, but I dunno. Somehow, I don’t think that global warming’s got nothing to do with it. I think... I think it’s them oddly dressed people somehow.
There’s not as many of them this year, and them that came in looked nervous, exhausted... and scared. The ones who didn’t were the ones who looked normal, the ones who are like us but maybe their kid got that something extra that made them just enough different, they could walk through that wall between Platform 9 and Platform 10. Something about them was like lambs to a slaughter, I don’t know why I was thinking that, but some of ‘em, the new ones, the first timers, well... I couldn’t help it. I went up to ‘em, to their parents, and I says, I says, “I dunno what’s going on, but I don’t think you want to put your kid on that train. I’m telling you, take your kid home. Please. Something bad is going to happen.”
Sometimes, they’d look at me and grab their protesting child, and they’d leave in a hurry, as if what I’d said had only confirmed something they’d been feeling. Others looked at me like something they’d scraped off their shoe and continued on like I hadn’t said nothing. What would I know? I only run the newstand, yeah? Just another Londoner scraping by, what? Oh, well, I saved the ones I could.
Another thing, that red-headed family... they been coming here to bring a kid seems like nearly twenty years now. This year, they only had one, the girl, and I could see they didn’t want to bring her at all. But that girl, I could see she was made of pure stubborn. Just like her mum, she is, and a right one. One day, if she lives so long, she’s going to be a right terror with her own brood. Thing is, though, I wondered where the tall lanky brother was, and the bushy haired girl what spoke so prissy, and then the little black-haired chappie. The one with the glasses what bounced off the wall a few years ago. There’s summat about him, and I can’t help worrying because somehow, I think it all hinges on him. And if he’s not all right, then we aren’t neither, and maybe I should head down to my cousin in Dover.
Maybe me and the missus should just.. finally take that holiday we been talking about for the last ten years, go to Dunkirk and look for my grand-da’s grave, or maybe even to Florence and get warm again. This here damn fog sets a chill in the bones and I swear there are times when it gets so thick, I feel like I’ll never be happy again. Dunno why, but it gives me the willies.
It’s all on that black-haired chap with the glasses, I’m sure of it. I got me instincts, I know what me gut tells me and it tells me we need to get out. We need to leave, because things are changing, and it won’t be good. More than a few of the regulars, like me, have already gone. They’ve got instincts, too. You don’t live in the city and not get a feel for when Trouble is coming. Big Trouble.
When I saw the people in the black robes coming through the station, I knew it was nearly too late. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to help any more of those families that weren’t like the wizards, because I can say that now. That’s what them folk are, witches and wizards. And something bad is going down with them, I know it in me bones. So, when the people in the black robes with the too-happy faces came through the station, I closed my stand and waited for them to pass, and then I left. I stopped any stragglers who looked like they was heading for that special gate, and I told them only one thing.
Run.
Because that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to run. Now. While the running’s good. I’m going to gather up Meg, going to call our Peggy, stop long enough to bleed my bank account dry, and we’re leaving. All of us. Luggage? Who needs it, when it’s your life on the line? Yeah, we’re going. Bloody September, bloody wizards and their wars... I don’t need no part of it!
One day, they’re going to figure out that they’re not alone in this world. That they got to share it with the rest of us. I, however, don’t plan to hold my breath and wait. I got my family to protect. Good luck to you all, and godspeed.