The fog count

In our village, when the fog comes in off the marsh, everyone goes to the church hall and gets counted.

It's an old tradition. The vicar reads out the names from a big book, one by one, and you stand up and say "here." Children think it's boring. Adults take it very seriously. Nobody explains why.

Last autumn, a thick fog came down in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. We all filed into the hall. The vicar opened the book and began.

There were 212 names in the book. 212 people answered.

Then the vicar closed the book, and opened it again, and frowned. "That's odd," he said. "There's another name."

He read it out. Nobody I'd ever heard of. A name that sounded old, like something off a gravestone.

A voice from the back of the hall said "here."

We all turned. There was nobody standing at the back. Just the fog, which had got in somehow, though the doors were shut, pooling along the floor by the coat hooks.

The vicar read the next name, which also wasn't there before. Another "here" from the back. And the next. The book had more pages now. They kept turning on their own.

We were there until dawn. By the time the fog lifted, the vicar had read out 213 new names, and each one had answered.

There are still exactly 212 of us living in the village. We've counted.

But the shop sells more bread than it used to. And at night you can hear people walking on the lanes, chatting quietly, going home to houses that were empty yesterday.