The mornings were getting chillier and, as autumn settled in, the fog covered the town as if it was a wet blanket. Which was very unpleasant for Ferry. He hated cold and moisture. Although his mother bundled him up every morning, he could feel the cold the moment he went out the door. The cold made him walk clumsily, with head hidden between his shoulders. He would mumble a faint good morning to Matilda when they met to go to school together. Then they walked along without saying a word. A few houses away, Ben would join them, just as silent and the three of them would head to school in silence. School days seemed longer now ever since the sun ceased to warm up the small town of Goodharts.

One of those mornings, when the fog was making everything almost impossible to see, the three friends met on their way to school, as usual. It seemed a quiet, cold morning like so many before. Only their steps could be heard on the wet slabs of the street. Suddenly, a terrible scream broke the silence. A frightening, horrible wailing, followed by strong claps.

Ferry stopped in the middle of the street. "Did you hear that?"

Matilda and Ben also stopped, listening, "Hear what?"

The wailing stopped. His friends shrugged and continued on their way. They've gotten used to Ferry's queerness. Ferry followed shortly after.

But then, that scream again. It sounded like a woman's wailing. This time, it was accompanied by the clatter of horses hooves. And then, out of nowhere, the eeriest, most frightening carriage came out of the fog. It had the shape of a black coffin and it was pulled by black horses. Only that... they had no heads. He couldn't believe his eyes. Right there, in front of him, ran a carriage pulled by four headless horses. Before he could say anything, the carriage sped away and melted into the mist. The woman's wailing continued for a while, then it was also swallowed by the fog.

"Did you see that? The carriage that went by?" Ferry asked his friends, barely breathing.

"What carriage?" laughed Ben. "I see carriages only during the summer fair. And the only cars around here are those going to the sawmill. And of course, Mr. Pride's car, but he doesn't drive around here too often."

Ferry didn't answer. At school, he couldn't pay attention, nor was he in the mood for playing during the break. He ate his lettuce sandwich, so delicious once, yet so tasteless now. Then he decided to wait patiently until the school ended, which was rather hard, considering what had happened. Not even May's smile could brighten up his day, as it usually did.

At home, time passed by just as slowly. The only pleasant moments were those when he was visited by his raven, for whom he always kept a piece of bread or a cookie.

He was now looking at the chocolate pudding in front of him without even touching it. The apparition had troubled him beyond words. He'd gotten used to all the creatures and beings populating his mind. He wanted to believe his mother and blame it on his wide imagination. But somewhere, deep inside, he knew those beings were real. He knew they existed somewhere else than inside his head, even though nobody seemed to notice them.

"Is it something wrong, dear?" his mother interrupted his thoughts. "Is everything all right at school?"

"Yes, Mum, everything's fine," he answered in a low voice.

"I hope you haven't been arguing with your classmates. Children can be very cruel sometimes, you know. But I'm sure that if they knew you, you would be the best of friends."

"I don't want them to know me," he said, staring at the plate.

His mother turned her full attention to him.

"Nobody really knows me," he added. "If they knew me, they'd be afraid of me."

Mrs. Donovan took his face in her palms and looked him in the eyes. "I know you better than anyone and I'm not afraid of you. Why don't you let your friends know the real you?"

"But what if they won't like me? The real me, that is..."

"Then they don't deserve to be your friends," she said, smiling.

Ferry raised from his chair and hugged her.

"Thank you, Mum," he said, surrendering to her embrace.

"For what?" she wondered.

"For being you."

His mother smiled. Then she saw him preparing to leave."You didn't finish your dessert."

"I'm full already. Can I go to Ben's now? We have difficult homework and he would be of great help."

"All right, but don't be too late. It's getting dark early now..."

Before she could finish, Ferry has already dashed out the door.

⃰

Ferry had a great time whenever he visited Benjamin Knight. Ben's father worked at the sawmill, too, and his mother stayed at home to take care of children, as most of the women in Goodharts did.

Ben had three younger sisters who, unlike him, were the friskiest, most restless girls Ferry had ever met. They all had dark hair and dark complexions, just like Ben. And just like Ben, they were extremely happy each time Ferry paid a visit. Their greatest joy was to play with him in the living room. After only a few minutes of playing, the room was unrecognizable─ toys flying in the air, rumpled carpets, furniture moved from its place.

But that didn't seem to bother Mrs. Knight. "A home with children in perfect order means the children are ill," she would say.

When she saw him at the door that late afternoon, she greeted him with a smile, shaking the flour off her apron. "Come in, Ferry, come in! I was just making an apple pie, and some whipped cream to go with it," she chatted, smiling.

From the moment he passed through the Knights' doorway, Ferry felt the terrible memory of the strange apparition fading away. Inside, he smelled the apple pie and felt the warmth of the cheery fire in the fireplace. In front of the fireplace, there was Mr. Knight's armchair, where he would sit when he got home from work.

The Knight girls greeted him with jolly shouts the moment he came in and then started to pull him by the clothes and call him to come and play. The oldest one, Bella, was seven. Once, she whispered in Ferry's ear, in great secrecy, that they would be married someday. This was to her sisters' envy, Bianca and Belinda, who also had thoughts about marrying Ferry. Ferry smiled at the three little girls and started to play. They were fascinated by his hair and would ruffle it every time they got the chance.

"Ferry, let's play the fairies!" said Bianca, who was five.

Ferry stretched his arms and started to run around the room, accompanied by the three little girls. As he passed by Mr. Knight's armchair, something caught his eye.

Buried between the pillows, dozing by the fire, there was the strangest creature. It was a green-yellowish sort of lizard. But, unlike a usual lizard, this one looked somehow human. It didn't have eyebrows, but its eyes were closed now, rapidly moving underneath the eyelids. The nose was barely visible, and the mouth had no lips. The lizard had hands and feet with three fingers each, united with a membrane. Ferry took a better look—the creature had palmed hands, like humans. The boy rubbed his eyes in disbelief, waiting for the strange being to vanish, as all the other strange beings usually did. But this one didn't. It even opened its eyes and stretched, its glare on Ferry. It had brown eyes. Intelligent, human eyes. To make the apparition disappear, Ferry decided to sit in the armchair. That's when he heard a voice behind him, shouting in despair:

"Wait, wait! You're sitting on Izzy! YOU'RE SITTING ON IZZY!"

Ben appeared out of nowhere. With the kindest gesture, he took the creature in his arms. So he could see it, too. The lizard crawl to his shoulder, blinking.

"What's that?" asked Ferry.

"That's my lizard, Izzy."

"Where did you find it?" Ferry wondered. "It's the weirdest lizard I've ever seen."

"I didn't find him," said Ben, accentuating the last word, obviously upset his friend treated his pet as if it was not there. "He came to our door last summer, on a stormy night when you wouldn't leave a dog outside. From the moment he got in, he sat in that armchair and he only comes down when Dad comes home. At night, he asks to go outside and comes back the next day in the morning. I've tried to follow him, but he's too fast, climbing the trees faster than a cat."

"Well, it seems he found you."

'"Yes, you could say that..." Ben admitted, caressing the lizard's neat head.

"But, Ben, have you ever thought maybe it's not a lizard. A lizard doesn't look like that. ""I thought about it, too. The scales and tail are missing. But I can't find any other animal to compare it with. Maybe it's a lizard with malformations. Now let's leave Izzy to rest. Come on, we have to study," said Ben and he gently placed Izzy between the pillows of the armchair. Yet right before the two boys left the room, Ferry could swear the lizard winked at him.

He was still puzzled when he entered Ben's room. It was the tidiest room in the house. Except for the bed, a chair and a small table where he did his homework, there wasn't any furniture. The walls were covered with posters of astronauts, rockets, and aliens. Ben was dreaming about becoming a space explorer one day.

Studying couldn't go any slower that day. Ferry was absent-minded and not in the mood for anything. So after they did their homework without the smallest trace of enthusiasm, the two boys rushed to the living room, where Mrs. Knight brought a whole plate of apple pie. The pie was delicious; the room was warm and full of children's laughter. That's how Mr. Knight found them when he came back from work. All the Knight children jumped on his back, pulling him by his long, black mustache.

"It's terrible weather outside," he said, taking his coat off. "It's getting foggy. You can barely see where you're walking."

Ferry hadn't realized how late it was. He looked out the window and jumped as if burnt. "I must go! It's late and my mother is probably worried. Thank you for the pie, Mrs. Knight! Goodbye, Mr. Knight! See you tomorrow, Ben!" And he bolted out the door.

Outside, it was cold and dark, and the milky fog covered everything. Ferry hurried home, almost running. Although he didn't live far from Ben, the road home seemed longer than ever. The cold embraced his body, making him shiver like a cloth in the wind. The street lanterns threw a pale light that could hardly pierce the thick fog. After a while, his steps gained an echo. Ferry looked behind, but he couldn't see anything. He thought about running when a terrible wailing held him still. The same as the one in the morning. The wailing was ceaseless, coming closer and closer. Soon, it was accompanied by the clatter of hooves. Ferry hid behind a tree on the side of the road, barely breathing. He wasn't fast enough and the carriage would have eventually caught up. He wasn't afraid of many things in this world, for he had seen a lot, but this apparition was truly scary, even for him.

The sinister carriage suddenly came out of the mist, and once more, the headless horses ran in front of him. This time, Ferry got a better look at the coachman. And to his horror, he saw the carriage was driven by a headless man who was whipping the horses.

The wailing continued. It was someone inside the eerie carriage who was mourning in the most deafening and terrible way. But the carriage didn't stop and Ferry realized that whoever was inside, wasn't following him. Then a thought came to his mind. He thought about following the carriage. He knew he was already late, but his curiosity was bigger.

He almost couldn't believe how fast he was running. Sometimes he had the feeling he was barely touching the ground. The streets were deserted at that late hour and the carriage was racing on the wet street slabs. And then the horses suddenly stopped, held by the headless coachman.

The house in front of which the carriage stopped was familiar to Ferry. It was Matilda's house. At that late hour, only one room was poorly lit, somewhere on the second floor. All of a sudden, the carriage's door opened and the most frightening creature came out. It was an old woman, older than any woman Ferry has ever seen. Her clothes were completely gray as if made of the mist surrounding her. Her white hair was tangled and disheveled, reaching the ground. Her mouth looked like an abyss. She started to wail again, holding her head in her hands. Her eyes were red and swollen, full of bloody tears. The old hag got closer to the gate and looked straight up, at the lighted room. Then she started to sing. The most heartbreaking, frightening song Ferry had ever heard.

At the terrible sight in front of him, Ferry felt he couldn't stay any longer. He fled without looking back. And he didn't stop until he got home.

That night, the song haunted his dreams again.

The next day, at school, Miss Summer let them know Matilda would not come to school. Her grandmother, who had been suffering for a long time from a terrible disease, died the night before.

Ferry's tale is getting pretty scary... Please vote and comment and let me know if you enjoyed this new chapter.