The Green By-Election

He’d been knocking on doors for three hours. Rain fell, on and off. A cold wind chilled the back of his neck. His leaflets became damp and started curling at the edges.

But he didn’t care about the politics. He just cared about making a bit of pin money. And the free fleece.

The street was one of those new-build estates on the edge of town. Identical houses, behind identical hedges, with identical little gravel strips pretending to be gardens. He preferred these streets. People answered their doors quickly. They didn’t argue with him or ask awkward questions.

He walked up the path to Number 14. Nondescript grey door with a chrome letterbox. Plastic flowers in a hanging basket, faded by the sun.

He knocked and immediately heard movement inside. Not footsteps and not voices, just a soft shift of air, as if someone were standing very close on the other side of the door.

He straightened his fleece and cleared his throat as the door opened.

A woman stood there. Neither young nor old. Her hair was long and pale, almost silver, falling straight down her back. Her skin had a strange glow. Not unnaturally bright, not artificial, not layered with foundation. Just… clean, like moonlight on water. She wore a simple grey dress and her feet were bare on the laminate floor.

She didn’t smile or blink. She didn’t say hello.

He launched into his script anyway. “Evening. We’re just speaking to residents about the by-election next week.”

She tilted her head slightly, as if listening to something behind him.

He felt a prickle along his spine.

Her eyes were green. Not hazel. Not brown-green. But green like leaves after rain.

He swallowed. “Just wondering if you’re planning to vote.”

She stepped forward. Not close enough to touch him. Just close enough that he could smell something. Not perfume, not sweat, not alcohol, not cigarettes. Something more like damp earth, like the inside of a hollow tree.

Her voice, when it came, was soft, low and precise. “You knock on doors,” she said, “but you don’t know who answers.”

He blinked. “Sorry?”

She looked past him, down the street. The wind shifted. The hedges rustled. The streetlights flickered.

He turned to see what she was looking at. But the street was empty.

When he turned back, she had drawn closer. Her bare feet were on the threshold now, toes touching the line where the laminate flooring met the concrete doorstep. She lifted her hand - long fingers with pale nails - and rested it lightly against the doorframe.

The wood darkened under her touch. Just a shade. Just for a moment. Revealing the whorls and knots. As if something ancient had been brought to the surface.

He stepped back. “Look, I’m just...”

“You’re not meant to be here,” she said. Her voice wasn’t angry. It wasn’t kind either. Just certain.

He felt his breath catch. He wasn’t the kind of person to get scared or nervous. And that wasn’t how he felt now. But something inside him tightened, like a string pulled too hard.

She stepped back into the house. The hallway behind her looked wrong. Too dark. Too deep. Too quiet. He couldn’t see where it ended.

She placed her hand flat against the inside of the door. The wood lightened again, returning to its normal colour beneath a veneer of grey gloss.

She looked at him one last time. Her eyes were brighter now. Green like a spring meadow. Green like something that shouldn’t be confined to a house on a new-build estate.

“You should go,” she said.

He didn’t argue. He hurried down the path, not daring to look back. The wind picked up. The hedges rustled again. The streetlights flickered.

He reached the pavement. His breath came in shallow gasps, His fleece felt clammy with sweat.

He only turned when he heard the door close. The hanging basket swayed gently. The house looked exactly like all the others again. But the air around it was altered. Even colder and sharper, as if the wind now came from a different clime.

He stood there for a moment, with a soggy leaflet crumpled in his hand, trying to steady his breathing. The ink had run, blurring the candidate’s name and promises, as if beneath a spreading bloom of moss. He remembered, vaguely, that someone had said the Greens thought they had a chance this time. That the ground was shifting and people were listening. He hadn’t cared. It was just a side hustle. A freebie fleece.

He wasn’t sure what he’d disturbed. But her eyes... their vivid shade of green... stayed with him. Bright and wet and alive. Like something growing in the cracks between...