I still remember when I first encountered Dr Night. It happened late in the afternoon on an overcast and chilly day in March, when the world seemed grey and devoid of any notions of magic or wonder. 

I was just putting on my coat to go home when I heard a sound from the vacant consulting room at the back of the building. 

Now, before we go any further, let me just tell you about that room. It had been empty for months, and with good reason. It was by far the worst room in the whole building: dark and narrow, and seemingly designed to amplify the joyless nature of the place, from the drab paint and depressingly small windows that choked out the sunlight, to the imposingly tall cabinets that loomed over the seats with an air of menace. 

It was a room nobody wanted.

There was absolutely nothing special about it.

Anyway, I opened the door to find him just standing in the middle of the space like a statue, as if studying or listening to the walls around him, a small smile on those thin lips. He looked quite a sight in the fading rays of afternoon sunlight. He was astonishingly tall and willowy; dressed in a dark grey tailcoat that shimmered ever so slightly when he moved, as if there was a subtle golden thread woven into it. Beneath the coat, he wore a loose-fitting white shirt, a dark green waistcoat, and a pair of brown woollen trousers. On his head were small round gold-framed glasses with a slight silver tint to the lenses, making it hard to see his eyes. His fair hair was swept back, and there was never a hair out of place. His face was narrow and thin, sharp features, and yet somehow he managed to avoid looking gaunt, sinister or unpleasant.

His whole ensemble gave him a vague appearance of having emerged into the world from out of the mid-nineteenth century. There was something–like an aura–shining out of him that made him instantly likeable, even as it made him stand out from anyone else in the room.

“Can I help you?” I asked, stepping inside.

“Oh, I just popped by to check out the room,” he said without turning. “I need to make sure it’ll be suitable for tomorrow.”

“Suitable?” 

“For my clinic, I’m going to be based in here, you see.”

“Oh, so you’re the new doctor?” I hoped I didn’t look too startled by that fact, and held out my hand with a smile. “Then, I’m your new secretary. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Selene.”

“Selene?” He span around, tailcoat swishing, and peered at me. The light hit the tinted lenses of his glasses turning them into twin silver pools in his face. “Yes, of course, like the moon.” His smile grew wider showing neat rows of small white teeth, almost too many of them for his mouth. “I’m Dr Brùnaidh, but if it helps, call me Dr Night, most people do.”

“Dr Night?” I frowned. “Why?”

“I only work at night, you see.”

“Really?” my frown hadn’t shifted, if anything, it deepened. “But, the surgery closes at six, doesn’t it?”

“I only work from dusk until dawn.”

“I see,” I said, more confused than ever. “And, you’ve cleared that with management and security?”

“Oh, yes. Everyone thinks it’s a wonderful idea.”

I folded my arms. “Really? They’re normally not very open to change here. What about the cleaners?” I asked as the thought hit me. “They’d have to put in a new variation order for that, surely?”

“That’s all taken care of. They were very accommodating.”

“So, if you’re working late,” I said with a sinking heart, “does that mean you need me to stay late as well?” I tried to imagine what effect working from dusk until dawn would have on me. Granted, I had no real social life to speak of, but I enjoyed my evenings at home all the same.

“No.” he chuckled. “Not if you don’t want to. I work better alone, but that doesn’t mean you’re not welcome to stay if you’d like. I always like the company of good natured folk, and who am I to refuse the moon?”

“Well … to be honest, I might not be here long anyway.”

His eyebrows arched sharply. “Why not?”

“The thing is, I don’t really fit in around here.”

“Neither do I.” He looked genuinely perplexed. “What does fitting in have to do with anything? It’s all very over-rated in my book. ”

“No, what I mean is, the management don’t really like me. They think I’m too outspoken, they say I have a bad attitude–and that I say inappropriate things.”

“Do they? Why? Do you swear at the patients? Are you cruel to people?” He leaned closer and his face grew serious. “Do you pick your nose and stick bogies under the chairs?”

“No,” I couldn’t help but laugh, “of course not.” 

He waved a hand dismissively and smiled again. “Then don’t worry about it. You’re the way you should be.”

“I … I suppose so.” I shrugged. “No offence, but you’re not like most of the doctors I know. They’ve usually got their heads so far up their own backsides you need forceps to get to them.”

“Fortunately, I don’t deal with proctology here,” he announced with a chuckle, and then turned slowly giving the room a final appraisal. “Not much to look at is it, but I can work with it. Why don’t you take the day off tomorrow? Come in around seven instead, and then we can see if my usual office hours will work for you.”

“Okay,” I said slightly reluctantly. The truth was, I was beginning to wonder just what I was getting myself into. I left that room utterly bemused, unsure if I had just met the most interesting person I had ever encountered, or a certifiable lunatic who had somehow broken into the building. 

As instructed, I didn’t head into work until seven the next evening. I wasn’t sure what I expected as I drew into the empty clinic car park–perhaps someone sternly waiting with folded arms to tell me I was now fired for being so late. I wouldn’t put it past anyone there to do something like that. I was sure they were looking for any excuse to get rid of me. Instead, I found the building in darkness, locked up tight.

So much for holding an evening clinic, I thought, rattling the doors. I knew it had all sounded too strange to be true. Perhaps this was someone’s idea of a cruel joke, or a set-up to drop me in it? Either way, I wasn’t amused. This little farce might have cost me my job, or would at least further damage my already tarnished reputation with the clinic’s managers. I could almost imagine the sound of knives being sharpened.

I was just about to head back to my car, already thinking about what I would say tomorrow when they asked me why I hadn’t come in that day, when I heard muffled voices from inside and saw a faint gleam of a light in one of the back rooms. 

Following the sound around the building, I found the rear doors unlocked, and as I opened them and stepped through, in place of a dark and empty waiting room, I found the space beyond filled with people of all ages. Some were reading magazines or books, some knitting, and a few were sipping hot coffees from thermos flasks. The younger ones among them were browsing on their phones. Many of them glanced around with interest as I stood in the doorway, and for a moment I hesitated, unsure as to what I should do.

“Don’t just stand there, my dear,” an old lady winked at me. “You’d better find a seat. He’ll be starting soon.”

“Who will?” I blinked, startled by the sea of faces now peering at me. 

“Dr Night, of course, who else?” she laughed. “Why don’t you sit here?” she patted the seat beside her. “He’s very good, you know. I had such terrible wandering memories, kept forgetting things. But he managed to catch them all and stitch them back in place, keep everything where it should be. Now I can remember everything, even being born.”

“Excuse me?”

“Here, you’ll need this,” she said, rooting around in her handbag and then passing me a small sachet of porridge oats. “I see you didn’t bring any with you. Is it your first time at one of his clinics?”

I turned it over in my hands, totally confounded. “Sorry, what’s this for?” 

“Ah, is that you, Selene?” a voice called from the back clinic, and Dr Night peered around the door, flashing that small-toothed smile that seemed to light up the room. “This way, please.”

I hurried through the waiting room and found him standing in his back office, flicking through a set of notes with a slender finger.

“Where did all these people come from?” I asked, amazed.

“Through the door, I imagine.”

“No, I mean, how do they even know about this? How did you advertise it?”

“Oh, the people who need my help know where to come. They always have.”

“What does that mean?”

“Watch and learn.”

“Okay. So, what do you need me to do?”

“I need you to manage the notes, call the patients in when I’m ready for them, and occasionally to bring me items from the back room over there. It’s very simple really.”

“That’s it?”

“For now,” he smiled. “So, who do we have first?”

“Oh, uh, Denis Cranfield,” I told him, checking the notes on my own desk just outside his office door. “With just the one ‘n’, like in penis … not that he is–a penis, I mean.”

“I’d imagine not.”

“Sorry, sometimes I just say what my brain thinks. I warned you about that.”

“I shall have to see if we can devise a treatment for it,” he flashed me a smile and I was left wondering if he were serious, or merely making a joke. “Let’s see, Mr Cranfield. Chronic bad dreams and insomnia,” he said, flicking through a sheaf of notes I hadn’t seen before. The paper was thick and heavy, more like vellum, the neatly elegant writing on it written with a strange red-brown ink. “The dreams will be an easy fix. We’ll just lure them out with some cheese, dreams love cheese, you know. Then, we’ll swap them for some happier ones. The insomnia will take care of itself.”

“Are those our notes?” I asked, confused.

“No, these are ones I brought with me from my last practice. Mr Cranfield has been a patient of mine since before he was born.”

“Before he was born?” I laughed. “Don’t you mean since?”

“Hmm, if you say so,” he smiled distractedly, continuing to check the notes.

“Have you had many practices before this one?”

“Oh, a few, over the centuries,” he nodded. “I like to move around. This is a big world. Why stay in only one little spot?”

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” I shrugged. “My family is here.”

“And, what about your friends?”

I looked up to see him watching me, inscrutable behind those tinted glasses.

“Oh, well… I don’t really have any,” I admitted. “Not since school. They all moved away–universities or jobs. My two best friends ended up in Bristol and Leeds, we just kind of lost touch over the years.”

“But, you stayed here?”

“Yeah, well, mum was ill. She had cancer, and she needed me. After … well, later on, I couldn’t leave dad alone, so I stayed. It’s just me now though.”

“Must be lonely?”

“Sometimes, but I have my books.”

“Ah, you write?”

“No. I read, voraciously. I love books, always have. They’re portals to other places, other times, other lives. I know they’re no substitute for the real thing, but they can take you to destinations you’d never be able to go in real life. They have a magic to them, you know.”

He smiled, and again it seemed to light up the room. “They certainly do. I always say you can tell a reader by the spark in their eyes. I saw it in yours right away.”

“Well,” I suddenly felt awkward and a little self conscious, as if I had allowed a part of myself to be seen that was normally always tucked carefully away from others. “I’d, uh, better go get our first patient.”

Denis Cranfield made his way into the office with an expression akin to a young boy about to step onto a fairground ride. That slightly nervous but expectant excitement that something wonderful, and perhaps slightly scary, was about to unfold. It was strange seeing that look on the face of an octogenarian, for a moment all of the years seemed to drop away from him, and a sparkle that had previously been absent lit up within his eyes. He carried a small sachet of porridge oats in front of him, like he was taking some sacred offering into a shrine, and he grinned at me as he passed.

As Dr Night quietly closed the door behind him, I settled myself at my desk outside. I had planned to get on with my work as usual, even though nothing felt usual about this whole evening. I stifled a yawn as I waited for the computer to load up, debating if a strong coffee might be needed to get me through until morning. 

From beneath the door to Dr Night’s office there came a bright silvery flicker, casting long lines of dancing light across the floor in front of me. It was like the play of moonlight on water, but far brighter. Turning my head, I saw the same silver-white light blazing out of every gap around the door, and I sprang from my chair in surprise.

You’re probably wondering why I didn’t run at this point. Well, the thing is, the thought never even crossed my mind. The pull of that light, and my astonished need to understand what was going on in that room, was just too overwhelming.

The old doors in our clinics still had keyholes in them. We had yet to see any sign of the new electronic swipe-cards they kept promising to upgrade us to. So, I crept to the door and pressed my eye to that glowing keyhole.

I know I shouldn’t have done it. I know it violated patient confidentiality and went against everything I knew to be right, but can you honestly say you wouldn’t have done the same? 

Anyway, as I peered into the room beyond, I almost cried out. By some miracle I managed to keep the gasp locked in my throat before it had a chance to escape my lips.

Because what I saw in that room should have been impossible.

Mr Cranfield sat in a chair in the middle of the space, eyes closed as if asleep. Dr Night was moving around him, framed by twin shafts of bright moonlight that streamed in through the narrow windows as though those beams had been focused directly upon the patient in the chair. As I watched, Dr Night touched his slender fingers to the sides of Mr Cranfield’s head and began to slowly and carefully draw out a long line of thick silver thread from the side of the patient’s scalp, which he gently wound around his hand. The thread glimmered, the way dew droplets sometimes sparkle on cobwebs, and as Dr Night drew it out, almost like someone reeling in a long length of fishing line, I saw Mr Cranfield’s face soften and relax.

“We’re almost done,” Dr Night said gently, and I realised the end of the shimmering thread had emerged from out of Mr Cranfield’s scalp. Dr Night promptly reached down, opened his black Gladstone bag, and then bundled the entire mass of gathered thread into it, before snapping it shut.

Then he turned and looked towards the door, and smiled at me.

I couldn’t see his eyes behind those glinting lenses, but I knew he was aware I was crouching on the other side of the door, watching everything.

In a start I backed away, my heart racing with a wild, trembling excitement. I scurried back around behind my desk and hurriedly snatched up some of the paperwork. My hands shook as I made a careful pretence of studying the documents, but my mind was reeling and the room seemed to be swaying a little.

The door opened with a faint click and Mr Cranfield stepped out, smiling.

“Thank you again! Can’t tell you how good it feels to be rid of them.”

“My pleasure,” Dr Night nodded softly. “Take care now.”

I watched as Mr Cranfield headed out into the hallway and through the waiting room beyond on his way to the back exit. That was when I realised Dr Night was still standing beside my desk, watching me.

“Selene, do you have a moment?”

My heart sank as I followed him into the consulting office. The chair still sat in the middle of the room, still framed in twin beams of moonlight, but the room felt larger somehow, as if the walls had expanded outwards. It didn’t feel like the same space at all.

“What did you think of my treatment?” he asked, picking up another set of notes. 

“What did I…? I mean, well… look–I’m sorry,” I babbled, bracing myself for the tirade of fury that I knew would come right before my dismissal from the job. “I shouldn’t have looked. I know it was wrong, and…”

“What? Oh, never mind that,” he waved a hand and chuckled. “I knew you’d look. You’d be no help to me if you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry?” I blinked. 

“You’re welcome to assist, if you’d like?”

“Me? But, I’m not a nurse, I’m just a …”

“You’ve already worked out that I am not conventional, neither are my practices or the rules I follow. In that light, perhaps it’s time we deepened your duties. What do you think?”

“Well, I… don’t know what to say. But, I mean, the patients wouldn’t want me there, for a start. I’d just…”

“Why don’t we let them make that decision?” he smiled.

“All right,” I nodded slowly. None of this felt real, it was more like some bizarre dream. In fact, I was half convinced I would wake up any moment to find myself slumped over my desk having nodded off. “But, there’s one thing I have to ask you.”

“And what’s that?”

“Are you some sort of a wizard?”

“No, I’m a doctor. I thought we’d covered that.”

“But you’re not like any medical practitioner I’ve ever seen.”

“Definitely not,” he chuckled. “You know, there was once a time when magic and science were inseparable. How times have changed,” he sighed, and then grinned as though the idea greatly amused him. “But no, I am not a wizard.”

“What are you, then?”

“Some things are best left unsaid. But, trust me that life is far better with the mystery intact. Your people want everything explained, analysed and dissected. There is magic in this world that cannot be rationalised or understood. The greater mysteries will never yield, no matter how much you keep picking at them.”

“My people?” I frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means the magic doesn’t always have to be explained.”

“But, it is magic, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But that’s all I think we should say about it.”

“You took something out of him, all that silver thread?”

“He didn’t need it. Nobody wants to keep their pain, after all.”

“Pain?”

“I work with the moonlight. You’d be surprised how potent it can be.”

“But it’s just light, right? It’s just the reflected light of the sun?”

“A thing can be far more than the sum of its parts. You’re the perfect example of that–you and every other living thing on this world. Moonlight is far more powerful than most realise, which I suppose is why so many overlook it.”

“But, the moonlight, it’s never the same is it? I mean, it changes.”

“Indeed it does,” he smiled, his eyes sparkling. “The waning moon helps with ridding patients of ailments and addictions, of clearing unwanted things away. The waxing moon helps with healing and strengthening of cures and treatments. But in truth, all moonlight, even the tiniest spark, can be used for healing and magic of all kinds.”

“And dark moons, when there’s no light at all?”

“Selene, my dear,” he flashed that small-toothed smile. “Aren’t I allowed at least one night off?”

When that first shift ended, I went home with a smile on my face, too excited and buzzing with energy to be able to sleep. I instead made myself a camomile tea and sat outside with a blanket wrapped around me, listening to the songs of the birds as the world woke around us. It felt as though my life had turned a corner; just days earlier I had felt listless and unhappy at work, a mood exacerbated by the hostility from those in charge towards me. Now, suddenly, there was lightness, a hint of magic and wonder that brought a new shine to the old paint and made those dingy back offices seem instead to be places of wonder and mystery.

I was cautious too, however. The cynic in me knew that often things that seem too good to be true usually are, or never last long. I hoped I was mistaken about that, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that part of me was expecting something to go wrong.

The next evening it seemed those fears had been well founded. We were just setting up and about to call in our first patient–a sullen young man who had severely lost his sense of humour–when I glanced across the waiting room and saw the angry face of Dr Jefferies, the Practice Manager, marching towards us like an angry bulldog gearing itself up for a fight. Instantly, a cold feeling of dread rose up within me. Jefferies was a sour-faced tyrant with a temper to match. His nickname, behind his back at least, was ‘the bulldog’. It was said one of his glares could buckle steel and crack concrete.

“Dr Night …” I started to call out a warning, but it was too late. The bulldog had stormed past me, his red face barely giving me a cursory glance, as he marched into Dr Night’s office and slammed the door. 

I knew exactly what this would all be about without needing to linger at the door. Dr Jefferies would have been furious about these unorthodox hours and the odd behaviour of our new doctor. I remember sitting at my desk, spirits sinking, waiting anxiously for the raised voices to start, wondering if I should start packing up my things then and there. I knew it had all been too good to be true, and even the curious miracles I had witnessed couldn’t have been enough to keep the real world and the wrath of people like Jefferies at bay.

Instead, however, there was only a curious silence once that door closed, broken only occasionally by a distant sound, something like a faint bell ringing. Jefferies’s customary snarl was strangely absent, and I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. This had never happened before. Normally you could hear his fury through any closed door.

I waited and squirmed in my chair, the hollow feeling in my stomach starting to churn.

Then the door opened quietly and the once angry bulldog came shuffling meekly out with a slightly glazed, bemused look on his face. He wandered past me as though he were lost in a daydream and quietly departed from the building without another word.

“Are we ready for our next patient?” Dr Night said, poking his head around the door.

“I – uh, yes, I’ll call him,” I nodded, almost tripping over the legs of my chair in my surprised haste to stand. “Is everything … I mean, with Dr Jefferies … are we in trouble?”

“Trouble?” he pretended to look surprised, but there was an impish twitch to the corner of his mouth. “Whatever for? No, the good doctor just had an excess of anger and ego, very bad for the blood pressure. I simply helped relieve some of it. He’ll be much happier for it.”

I found out later, from Esther – the formerly long-suffering secretary to Dr Jefferies – that he spent the rest of that week sitting in his office every day with a wistful, dreamy look on his face. He never challenged Dr Night again, and was even pleasant and courteous to the rest of the staff, with a newfound respect and humility that caught all of them off guard. His secretary whispered to me that it was like working for an entirely different person. 

And that was how it was from then on. Dr Night worked wonders from moonlight and span their pain and sickness into a glittering silver thread that he slipped into his shiny black Gladstone bag. Each of the patients who came through his door left an offering of porridge oats, which he also slipped into his bag with a grateful smile. 

I wondered how he could fit so much in there. It reminded me a little of the fictional Mary Poppins pulling all those things out of her bottomless carpet bag in the 1964 movie, but I didn’t dare ask him. 

For the actual treatments, I was always politely asked to step outside the room. So I can’t vouch for any of the bizarre or fantastical-sounding cures that he claimed to be employing. But once the treatment was applied, I was called back to help with the extracting of the silver thread, which as I understood it, was the pain or illness transformed and removed from the patient. 

I don’t know what happened to it once it was all carefully locked away inside that shiny black Gladstone bag, but each morning at dawn, when he departed for the day with a small bow and a grateful thank-you to me, it was always bulging at the sides.

What I did quiz him about, unable to hold back my curiosity any longer, was the nature of the ailments he was called upon to cure.

“I’ve noticed you don’t fix things that regular doctors do.”

“Do I not?” he asked patiently, favouring me with another small-toothed smile.

“Well, I mean loneliness, broken hearts and bad dreams–those aren’t exactly standard medical ailments. More like the purview of therapists.”

“Have you ever seen a therapist do what I do?”

“No. Not really.”

“Then, I rest my case.”

“But still, it seems unusual.”

“My dear Selene, if all of the other doctors and therapists out there in the world could do what I do, then there would be no need of me. They can’t, so there is, you see?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“There are plenty of doctors around to fix the everyday problems, but only a few of us to heal the things that I do. And make no mistake; the things I fix are just as harmful to the body and soul in the long run as anything else.”

Every evening, the patients came one by one, carrying an offering of oats for the doctor. And, as the moonlight bathed them, we took their transformed pain and sickness away, leaving them all seeming lighter and happier and free of whatever had been troubling them before. I watched him cure a chronic case of the giggles in one patient, deflate two or three over-inflated egos, and perform a confidence transplant into a shy wallflower of a young man. He gave memories back to those who had lost them, instilled hope in hearts that had grown hard or hollow, and put passion back into lives which had become jaded.

It is amazing how quickly the impossible becomes normality, how soon I stopped asking questions and merely accepted what I was witnessing as a perfectly normal night’s work.

Then came the night when I turned up as usual but found the clinic dark and silent, the waiting room empty, and only a small lamp burning in Dr Night’s office. I peered uneasily around the door to find him sitting on the edge of the desk, waiting for me with a small-toothed smile.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Where is everybody?”

“I forgot to remind you not to come in last night, so thought I’d better wait for you.”

“Not to come in? Why?”

“It’s a dark moon,” he gestured at the windows and the darkness beyond them, “my night off.”

“I hadn’t given it a thought.  I’m sorry. Should I go?”

“No, I think you should stay. I brought some wine and a record player. I thought it might be nice to have a drink and a dance, to thank you for all your help.”

“Wait,” I gave him a quizzical look. “You drink and dance?”

“If the situation calls for it,” he nodded. “Tonight it does.”

And so we did. We spent that whole evening playing old Peggy Lee records, sipping wine, dancing and laughing. And even though there was no moonlight flooding in through the narrow windows, it still seemed to me that the air sparkled around us, as if imbued with some mystical energy. 

Okay, yes, I know how this might sound to whoever is reading these words. You’re probably starting to wonder if I was slowly becoming infatuated with him, or if this might have been the start of a flicker of romantic love? Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. Honestly, I don’t think thoughts like that ever once crossed his mind. I don’t know on what level his brain worked, but love, the kind that we so often fall victim to, never seemed to occur to him. This night of music and dancing was a celebration of the moment, of the little sparks of magic that can light up a life. I think I had realised by this point that Dr Night wasn’t like the rest of us, that he moved to a different tune to the rest of the people I knew, but I had no desire to even try and shine any light onto the mystery of who he was. As Dr Night had once told me, not everything needs to be explained or understood. I was finally realising that.

The rest of that year went by with a speed I could barely comprehend. The months merged into one ill-defined blur of time that flashed past in a heartbeat. Before I knew it the nights had drawn in, there was frost on the ground each morning, and bright Christmas lights were decorating shop windows and casting a bright sparkle in the darkness of the streets.

I remember browsing in the shops during the day before heading into work, determined to get Dr Night something special to thank him for taking me under his wing, and for allowing me to see such wonders. I walked from shop to shop, uninspired, they all seemed to have the same things on offer, the same Christmas songs blaring out over their gaudily-lit and tinsel-strewn interiors, and the same vacant-eyed employees standing behind the tills awaiting the onslaught of shoppers that the evening would bring in droves. 

I was about to give up, to call the whole thing a bad idea, when I saw a tiny little independent tailor’s shop nestled amidst the larger stores, and stepped inside. I quickly realised, as I browsed the beautiful collection of exquisite waistcoats, trousers, shirts and gloves, that this shop was far out of my price range, and made my way to the door. I had almost made it out when I spotted a beautiful Cashmere scarf that the label declared had been proudly hand-made in Scotland. At eighty-nine pounds it was more than I had intended to spend, but the colours–deep dark blues and greens–called to me, and I could imagine how stunning they would look with that grey tailcoat that he wore. 

I bought it right away, and then quietly wrapped it at my desk before Dr Night got in for the evening.

I was making myself a coffee when he arrived. I returned to my desk to find a small midnight-blue box studded with golden stars waiting for me.

“Just a little something I wanted to get you,” he smiled, appearing in the doorway of his office. “Why don’t you open it now?”

I set down my coffee and did just that, carefully lifting the lid of the box to reveal a beautiful silver pendant shaped like a crescent moon sitting inside. My face must have been a mask of surprise. “It’s beautiful! But you shouldn’t have…”

“Now, none of that,” he smiled. “It seemed appropriate given what we do, and given your name.”

“Thank you,” I said again, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s lovely.”

“Glad you like it,” he nodded, turning to go back into his room.

“Wait! I got you something too,” I said, holding my gift out to him. “It’s not in a nice box like yours, and I’m sorry, my gift-wrapping looks like I did it blindfolded, but, well, hope you like it.”

“For me?” his eyebrows lifted in surprise as he took the package. 

“Happy almost-Christmas,” I said as he opened it.

His smile faded as he saw the scarf and he drew in a sharp intake of breath, eyes widening in shock. “What’s this?”

“Oh? You … you don’t like it?” I asked, hesitantly.

“A scarf? You gave me a scarf?”

“Well, you start so late, and it’s so cold out. I thought it would look lovely against…”

“Why did you do that?” he said, staring at me. I would have been offended by his ingratitude, but he looked so disappointed–so hurt–that I couldn’t feel anything but a kind of slowly growing horror.

“I … I thought you’d like it.”

“I do. But … Oh, it’s not your fault. I should have warned you. You can’t ever give me clothing. Not like this.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” I said, taken aback. “I’ll return it to the shop. I still have the receipt, and…”

“It’s not that simple,” he said, sadly. “I’m afraid it’s too late, the offer has been made. There’s nothing that can be done about it now.”

“What have I done?” I could feel the blood draining from my face, a desperate panic rising within me. “Please, what have I done? I just wanted to give you a gift!”

“And you did,” he said, but the pain on his face was heartbreaking to behold. “Don’t blame yourself. I should have told you. You weren’t to know.”

He took the scarf, gave me a strange sad look, and then stepped inside his room and shut the door.

It was twenty minutes later before I realised that no patients had arrived for that night’s clinic, and a full half hour before I knocked gently on Dr Night’s door to tell him the news.

When there was no reply, I opened the door only to find the room beyond empty; just the cold drab walls, the bare desk and chair, and the looming cabinets. 

That magical place was once more dull and mundane.

I never saw Dr Night again.

His strange but charming patients, with their offerings of porridge oats, also somehow seemed to know that things had changed. I half expected a confused mass of them to turn up wondering why there was no clinic that night, or any of the nights to follow. But they never did. 

I think back to that strange man and those miracles I watched him perform. At times they seem so distant and dreamlike that I struggle to believe they really took place.

But, I still have the beautiful silver locket he gave me, the one that glows when the actual moon is full, and when it does, I know my memories of him are true, no matter how strongly the mundane world demands that such things are not possible. 

I often wonder where he is now. He’s no doubt still performing his amazing miracles in some back room of a clinic somewhere; bringing the gifts of life, hope and magic back into lives bruised by the harsh world around us. 

I also wonder, had I not given him that scarf, a gift that so obviously drove him out of my life, what other miracles I might have observed, and what deeper secrets he might have shared with me.

I wonder too if I would ever have understood the miracle of just who and what he was.

Then again, as he himself stated on more than one occasion, perhaps those were mysteries best left unknown.

[Simon Bleaken lives in Wiltshire, England. His work has appeared in magazines, ezines and podcasts, including Lovecraft’s Disciples; Tales of the Talisman; Dark Dossier; Strange Sorcery; Lovecraftiana; The Horror Zine; Schlock Webzine; Night Land; Weird Fiction Quarterly, Eternal Haunted Summer and on The NoSleep Podcast, Creepy Podcast and HorrorBabble Originals. 

He has also appeared in the anthologies: Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales (2008); Space Horrors: Full-throttle Space Tales #4 (2010); Best Gay Romance (2015); Eldritch Embraces: Putting the Love Back in Lovecraft(2016); Kepler’s Cowboys (2017); Twilight Madhouse Vol. 2 (2017); The Shadow Over Doggerland (2022); The Horror Zine Magazine Summer 2022 (2022); HellBound Books’ Anthology of Science Fiction Vol.1 (2023); From Beyond The Threshold (2023) Eldritch Investigations (2023) House of Haunts (2023) The Horror Zine’s Book of Monster Stories (2024) Witchcraft and Black Magic in the United States (2024) When Shadows Creep (2024) The Whisperer in Valhalla (2024) Hospital of Haunts (2024) Who Let the Gods Out: Divine Wrath (2025) Blink of an Eye (2025) Solaris: Stories and Reflections Inspired by Andrei Tarkowsky’s movie (2025) Bio-Mechanic: Visions of Flesh and Machine – Stories and Essays on H.R. Giger (2025) and Codex of Pleasure and Pain: Stories Inspired by Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (2025).

His first collection of short stories: A Touch of Silence & Other Tales was released in 2017, followed by The Basement of Dreams & Other Tales in 2019, Within the Flames & Other Stories in 2021 and The Empire of the Moon and Stars & Other Stories in 2025.]