The Plasticine Men: The Changeover Day.

The face in the wall heard voices through the old plaster. Hoarse voices whose breathing came slowly and hard as if time was short. Houses like these carried memories deep in the walls, in the floors in the very stones that held up the strong, lonely building that some ambitious merchant had called Paradise House. A paradise it was not. George felt this too. He was walking towards the face with a small, red plasticine figure held between his left thumb and forefinger. He had done it again. The perfect gift to changeover the present one into the changed-one. There were many changed-ones now because of George. Some had been more challenging and had struggled to resist the changeover. But George had the faith. His Aunt had given him the faith before she went away from him. Only the faithful could create the changeover because they knew what had to be changed. They had seen and listened and that was  enough.

But George was the best. The Face in the wall told him so and George had no doubts about the truth of the face. The first time he had felt the whisper of plaster dust on his neck and then seen the dust settling in his hair, on his hands, even on his lips so he could taste the dust, he knew he had been found by something far larger than anything he had ever met before. His deep lostness, his helpless panic that she was gone, became hidden amongst the dust. It covered pain, it covered his certainty that no one would ever love him and his mystery ever again.

The red figure was a girl. She had a large head and brown eyes that sat on her face like scratches. George had made her small black boots and she was carrying a stick. Her hair had been difficult. The Face knew that and knew who George was bringing him today. Red hair was suggested with the tiniest of grooves all over her head. Even without any change there was light. This figure shone all by herself. She was herself, she was Demeter and her life was about to changeover.