15
‘What the bloody hell?’ growled Rob, staring in awe.
I had no words to offer. They’d all gone.
If I’d wondered before how an abandoned city came to be so well-kept, I had my answer now. Farringale’s wide, white boulevard lay stretched before us, flanked on either side by grand mansions in pale or golden stone and brick. A legion of shabby broomsticks was abroad in the street, wielded by no one and yet engaged in a furious orgy of sweeping. The noise bordered upon cacophonous as bristles scraped ruthlessly over paving stones and pathways and walls, removing every speck of accumulated dirt and dust. Ragged shreds of cloth applied themselves to leaded window panes, buffing them up to a renewed shine. Greenish water drained slowly from collected puddles, and buckets of fresher, soapy wat
