It was a strange figure, like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium and being diminished to a child’s proportions.
A solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
And BAM! another AU from nowhere. Victorian paranormal societies? Let’s goooooo!
***
“Sir? I don’t mean to disturb you, but I thought I might share your fire.”
Sandy looked up from his book to see Mr. Black standing the doorway of the sitting room, grim as ever, but also oddly diffident now. He smiled, and beckoned him in, gesturing at the decanter of brandy on the side table between the two armchairs near the hearth.
“Thank you,” Mr. Black said, pouring himself a drink.
Sandy watched him curiously. Mr. Black had always seemed to him to be an odd initiate into the Guardian Society, and it was half out of a desire to unravel his mystery that Lord Mansnoozie had accepted his unusually forward request to stay at his country estate, study in his library, and make use of his observatory.
