The Empty Chair Next Door

The rain didn't let up, and Cass was glad of it. It was ordinary rain, the sort that got down your collar and made the pavements shine and sent everyone in the world hurrying along with their heads pulled in like tortoises. After the bright still silence of the drowned house it was the finest thing he had ever walked through. It roared. It was cold. It soaked him through, and he could feel every drop of it, and feeling it meant it was real, and real meant they were out. Both of them. For now. His mother talked the whole way, which was how he knew she was frightened. She wasn't a talker as a rule. She'd gone quiet…