The Obscura Spore

The newspapers had been in the front room since 1991, and now they were something else. Delia had left them for day four because they were the worst job in the house and she had wanted to build up to them. Nine towers, chest high, along the wall between the window and the chimney breast, and she had checked the dates on the top layer with a torch on her first evening: Warrington Guardian, March 1991, a headline about a bus route. Underneath, more of the same going back. Her mother had subscribed to two dailies and a weekly for thirty years and had thrown away none of them, and Delia had priced a skip on that basis. The skip was in the drive. She had gloves, a paper mask, and a roll of rubble sacks. She crossed the room and put her hand out for the top of the nearest tower and her hand went into it up to the wrist. It was cold. Not damp-cold. Cellar-cold, the temperature of a stone step. She pulled back and stood looking at the hole her arm had made, and the hole did not close, and the…