The Empty Chair

The cold rises from the flagstones of the old church, pervading the stone arches and the wooden ribs of the vaulted ceiling. A cold that feels much older than the people who step into it, like an ancestral memory of Fimbulvetr.

The Reverend Mark Ellwood doesn’t switch on the overhead lights. He leaves the nave in its natural dimness, lit only by the fractured spill of colour from the stained glass window. The protective mesh over the glass breaks the light into uneven shards that scatter across the floor as if driven by the draught.

The chairs are already set out in a circle. A mismatched selection, unstacked and dragged from storage. Their metal legs look thin and uncertain on the uneven floor.

The Wednesday evening group arrives in fragments.

Daniel enters first, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand, as if trying to press sleep back into them. He’s thin in a way that suggests recent weight loss. The kind that comes from nights spent awake and days spent trying to conceal it. His hoodie hangs loose on his frame and its sleeves are frayed at the cuffs. He sits quickly and perches at the edge of the chair, as though anxious to be the first to speak.

Margaret arrives next. Her coat is zipped up tight to her neck. The steam of her breath is visible in the cold. She chooses a chair both far from the window and equally far from Daniel. Her hair is pinned back too tightly, giving her face a drawn, alert look, as though she’s bracing for something. She places her handbag on the floor beside her feet, but keeps one hand on its strap.

Arthur follows with his hands clasped behind his back. He moves slowly, as though the gravity of the building is dragging at his feet. His wool coat is decades old and its cuffs are shiny with wear. He nods at Mark but says nothing. He lowers himself into a chair with the careful precision of someone accustomed to pain.

Leah arrives last. The fur trimmed hood of her coat is up. She keeps her shoulders tight and her gaze fixed on the window. She moves with the nervous energy of someone who doesn’t want to be seen but can’t bear to be alone. She sits without removing her hood and tucks her hands into her sleeves.

The four settle into the circle and fail to make it a square. No one speaks. The cold solidifies around them.

Mark joins them and lowers himself into a chair, while giving a small exhalation of breath. The kind that comes from habit rather than relief. His eyes flick toward the one empty seat, then away. A reflex movement. The members of the group see it, but no one acknowledges it.

The stained glass colours shift again, sliding across the empty chair like a hand passing over it.

Mark clears his throat. The sound echoes too loudly and returns with too long a delay, as if the church is holding on to it.

“Shall we begin,” he says, not quite a question.

Daniel nods, though he doesn’t look up. Margaret tightens her coat. Arthur folds his hands. Leah pulls her hood further forward over her face

The silence stretches, long enough for the cold to settle even deeper into their bones.

Finally, Daniel speaks. “I haven’t slept,” he says. His voice is thin, almost inaudible. “Not properly. Not for days.”

He doesn’t look at Mark. He looks slightly to the right, toward the empty chair, as if expecting someone to nod, or interrupt, or simply be there. He doesn’t seem consciously aware of it. But the others notice.

Margaret’s eyes also flick toward the empty seat at the word ‘days’. She presses her lips together, as though holding something in.

Leah shifts in her chair. Her foot taps lightly against the stone floor. She continues to stare at the mesh covered window, but her body is angled toward the absence.

Arthur inhales slowly. The kind of breath that would normally precede speech. But he doesn’t say anything. His gaze becomes rooted to the floor.

Mark nods, but something in his expression flickers. A moment of doubt, quickly smoothed over.

Daniel continues. “I keep hearing things. Not voices. Just… things... Like the house is shifting. Like something’s moving when it shouldn’t.”

A chill breeze cuts through the nave. It rattles the mesh over the window. The colours on the floor shift like something alive.

Margaret shivers. Arthur rubs his hands together. Leah’s foot stops tapping.

Mark opens his mouth to respond, but the echo of the mesh rattling seems to interrupt him. He closes it again.

Margaret speaks abruptly, cutting across the silence. “You’re not listening to yourself,” she says. “You’re talking like...” She stops. Her eyes flick toward the empty chair. “Like he used to.”

Daniel stiffens. “I’m not...” He stops too. The vacuum formed by the empty chair seems to suck all the words out of him.

Leah mutters, “Feels like everything’s closing in. Like there’s no space left.” She doesn’t look at the empty chair, but her foot starts tapping again. A small, involuntary movement.

Arthur clears his throat. The echo makes it sound larger and more significant. He tries to smile and shapes his mouth into a faint, apologetic curve. “Feels like the world’s getting thin,” he says. “Like the walls are wearing away.”

He glances at the empty chair. Just once. Just long enough to confirm its emptiness.

Mark leans forward, holding his hands open in a gesture meant to reassure, readying himself to respond. But his voice catches before he can speak. He looks at the group, at their open faces and their clenched hands. He can almost see the cold settling into the very marrow of their bones.

Then he looks at the empty chair. And this time, he doesn’t look away. The group feels it. A shift in the atmosphere. A fracture in this moment.

Margaret’s voice sharpens. “You shouldn’t look at it like that.”

Mark blinks. “Like what?”

“Like you expect him to walk in,” she says. “Like you’re waiting.”

Leah mutters, “Everyone’s waiting.”

Arthur shakes his head. “We don’t know anything.”

Daniel whispers, “He said he’d come.”

Mark releases a slow, strained breath that echoes from the shadowed vaulting.

“I don’t know how to help with this anymore,” he says. His words fall into the circle like a stone dropped into still water.

Margaret’s breath stutters. Leah’s shoulders tense. Arthur closes his eyes. Daniel’s hands curl into fists. The cold tightens its grip. The colours shift. The empty chair stands alone.

The silence after Mark’s admission doesn’t fall cleanly; it thickens, as though the cold itself is freezing it solid. The stained glass throws a shifting patch of blue across Arthur’s shoes, a flicker of red across Leah’s sleeve, a smear of green across Margaret’s coat. Daniel’s face is half in shadow and half in a mosaic of colour, as if he’s being split in two directions at once.

Margaret is the first to move. She adjusts her coat collar with a small, fussy gesture that betrays her agitation. Her voice, when it comes, is low but sharp. “You shouldn’t say things like that,” she tells Mark. “Not here.”

Mark looks at her and something in his expression falters. “I meant...”

“You meant you’re giving up,” she says. “That’s what it sounded like.”

Arthur shifts in his chair, his movement slow and deliberate. “He didn’t say that,” he murmurs. “He said he didn’t know how to help.”

Margaret’s gaze snaps to him. “That’s the same thing.”

Arthur’s hands tighten around each other. His knuckles whiten. He doesn’t reply.

Leah makes a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “You’re all acting like he’s dead.” Her words land with a dull weight.

Daniel’s head jerks up. “Don’t say that.”

Leah shrugs. Her shoulders rise too high and are arched with tension. “I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking.”

“No,” Daniel says, his voice cracking. “You’re not.”

Margaret’s eyes flick toward the empty seat, then away. “We don’t know anything,” she says, but her tone betrays her. She does know something. Or fears she does.

Mark tries to intervene. “Let’s slow down. We’re all...”

But Leah cuts across him. “You don’t get to tell us how to feel,” she says. “Not when you’re sitting there looking at that chair like he’s about to walk in.”

Mark’s mouth opens, then closes. His breath fogs in the cold. He looks older than he did ten minutes ago.

Arthur leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “We’re not helping each other,” he says quietly. “We’re just… circling...”

His gaze drifts toward the empty chair where the colours shift again, burnishing the metal legs and making them glow. The mesh over the window rattles as another draught chills the nave, swirling round their ankles.

Daniel inhales sharply. “He said he’d come today,” he whispers. “He said he would.”

Margaret’s face tightens. “Daniel, please.”

“No,” he says, louder now. “He said he’d be here.”

Leah mutters, “People say things.”

Arthur closes his eyes. “Not him.”

The silence that follows is different from the earlier ones. It has shape. Weight. Direction. It points toward the empty chair like a compass needle.

Mark shifts in his seat. His hands rest on his ribs, as though he’s trying to cradle something fragile against his chest. “We don’t know what happened,” he says softly.

Margaret’s voice snaps. “Stop saying that.”

Leah’s foot taps rapidly against the stone. “This is pointless.”

Daniel’s breathing quickens. “He wouldn’t just disappear.”

Arthur’s voice is barely audible. “People do.”

Mark tries again. “We’re here to support each other. That’s all we can do.” But his words sound thin and insubstantial, diminished by the cold.

Margaret shakes her head. “Support? We’re not even listening to each other.”

Leah scoffs. “You’re not listening to anyone.”

Arthur rubs his forehead. “Please. This isn’t helping.”

Daniel’s voice rises. “He said he’d come.”

Margaret snaps, “Daniel, stop.”

Leah mutters, “He’s not coming.”

Arthur whispers, “We don’t know that.”

Mark’s voice breaks. “Enough.” The word echoes up into the vaulting, louder than he intended. It returns with an emphatic delay, as though the church itself is repeating it.

Margaret flinches. Leah’s shoulder muscles knot in place. Arthur’s hands freeze into an arthritic grip. Daniel’s eyes widen.

Mark closes his eyes, just for a moment, but long enough for the group to see the strain on his face. When he opens them, he looks at the empty chair once again. Not briefly this time and not accidentally, but with his full attention.

The others follow his gaze. The colours continue to pulse across the seat. The mesh rattles. The draught persists. The stones hold their silence. The chair seems to glow faintly, as though illuminated from within.

Margaret stands abruptly, her own chair scraping against the flagstones. The sound is sharp and jarring, echoing between the arches. “I can’t do this,” she says. “Not like this.”

Leah mutters, “Then leave.”

Margaret’s eyes flash. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Arthur raises a hand in a gesture meant to calm, but his voice shakes. “Please. Let’s not...”

Leah cuts him off. “You’re all pretending he’s fine.”

Daniel’s voice cracks. “Stop saying that.”

Margaret turns on him. “Daniel, you need to be realistic.”

He shakes his head violently. “No.”

Arthur tries again. “We don’t know anything.”

Leah counters. “We know enough.”

Mark leans forward, his hands trembling. “Please. All of you. This isn’t...” But he doesn’t finish the sentence. He can’t.

The cold presses in relentlessly. The colours continue to shift. The empty chair glows with its own faint radiance.

Margaret grabs her handbag. “I’m done,” she says. “I’m sorry, but I’m done.” Her footsteps echo like a reprimand as she walks toward the door.

Leah stands next, pulling her hood forward to shadow her face. “Whatever,” she mutters. “This is stupid.”

Arthur rises slowly. His movements are stiff and the ragged steam of his breath is clearly visible. He doesn’t look at anyone. He simply walks away, following in Leah’s wake.

Daniel lingers. He stares at the empty chair with an expression that is neither confusion nor fear, but something closer to longing. He reaches out a hand, as though to touch the back of the chair, but stops before making contact. He withdraws his hand slowly, then escapes the broken circle and walks toward the door.

Mark remains seated. The colours from the stained glass paint the empty chair with abstract shards of light. The mesh rattles more vehemently, as if something is trying to break in. The draught fully occupies the nave. The stones hold their ancient silence.

For him, the session has not ended.