I’ve been searching for Keith all over the place.

I even started to talk to people locally about it. Well kind of. I keep asking them if they have noticed anything strange about the weather. Most shake their head at first then you get the small smile.

“Oh of course it had been oddly still lately hasn’t it. I can finally walk outside without my hair becoming a tangled mess.”

“I swear this is the first day my washing hasn’t finished drying in five minutes.”

“I’m so glad we finally have nice weather in this drab town.”

It hurts a little bit to hear them hating on Keith, but I get it. To them he isn’t anything but a daily background noise. He isn’t a friend. He isn’t something they see as sentient. He is an it that often causes them annoyance.

I tried to work out how I could track him if he was lost. I have a few things holding me back though. I can’t take time off work which means I have been fitting this around evenings, early mornings and my couple of days off which vary. This makes searching a bit difficult and I’m sure a few neighbours have started whispering about how I have been wandering the countryside in the dark. Still I’m not the weirdest about. Craig the badger watcher who likes to make little hats for all the local wildlife is still firmly taking that spot. The other problem is I have no clue how to do this. If Keith was a missing person, I would report it to the police and assist them with whatever they needed. If he was a missing pet, I would put up posters and ask people I knew locally for help. A missing weather system is not something you can put posters up for.

I am trying my very best even so. For example I dared talk to Tiffany about this which is a huge thing for me. Tiffany is our local font of information and gossip. She runs the bakery in the middle of the high street between the post office and the tailors that always looks like it is about to go bust. And when I say runs that doesn’t mean she owns it however much she may want to put that impression out to people. I don’t like her. It isn’t because I am not much of a gossiper compared to her. Gossip is not always an awful thing. It can help get worry or annoyance out of peoples heads. No it is her self-entitled meanness. She feels she is the moral bastion of the village who always has sage “advice” about how things should be run.

It’s a load of bull crap. She was one of the factors that made bullying worse at school. She was a teaching assistant then. I told her what was going on and all she said was to buck up. It felt like the last betrayal to be honest.

But she knows what goes on around here. So I went in and bought an overly sticky bun with a side of rumour. I asked about whether there had been any weird events noted locally. Any new people come to town or weird rituals in the woods. It may not seem relevant to me now, but it might later after all.

“Well Ms Weyland I never like to be considered a gossip. I could never stand the little asides people will make but there has been talk about the old facility out of town again.”

“Old facility?”

“Hmmph. I guess you’re a little bit too young to remember Ms Weyland.” She rolled my name around her tongue like a lemon sweet.

“Back about thirty five years ago an academic research company set up just outside of town on the old Frank’s estate. They were a group of Necromancers, Elementalists and all the other kinds of trained gift users. It brought a lot of interest to us all though not any jobs. They were an insular lot keeping their own company and never getting involved with us except to order supplies. Their decision to leave was as sudden as their decision to set up in the first place. Only difference was they left their buildings behind.”

“Surely local kids had a poke around once they were gone.”

“Ms Weyland! I do not know what kind of delinquent youth you were, but we were brought up to a higher standard then.”

I let her continue without interrupting. With Tiffany it is always outrage then a spilling of her guts all over the place.

“And they left the security in place so without knowing the pass codes you’ll get a nasty zap at the very least and possibly much worse if you are unlucky. That’s why it is weird that people have seen lights coming from inside again. Seems one of the old team has come back, maybe to restart the experiments again.”

“Well thanks for telling me.”

That was how I left it. I mean there was a bit more wrangling with her trying to convince me to buy a few more items. All the kind of empty insults that are hidden by sugar. Like how I could do with a second bun as I certainly was a person who enjoyed overindulging. And she wonders why she struggles with business even without any competition.

I’m pretty sure that this isn’t relevant to my search, but I will keep it in mind if I get desperate. Speak to you guys again soon. Hopefully with good news.