4.20: Lottie's promise

A week later, Lottie and pTravis are resting, having walked all the way back to the Potting Shed again.

Lottie has dropped into conversation, more than once, that she ‘totally saved the world!’. 

One day, Alcock finds her alone in the Potting Shed and asks her how she managed to persuade the ‘Merlin Stone’ to stop his frightening modifications to nature and return to the sea. After all, wasn’t the Stone merely trying to save the Earth from the growing climate crisis? Why would it, or they, or he, stop? 

“I made him a promise.” 

“Really, on whose behalf?” 

“All of us. I said we’d stop the climate catastrophe ourselves!” 

“You promised that?! What will happen if we do not keep your promise.” 

“Oh. Well, the Stone said it would come back. It will stop the crisis, itself.” 

“How will it stop it?” 

“It will stop it by ‘stopping’ us. But I thought we could worry about that later.”

“I see.” 

Alcock suddenly feels the pressure on his shoulders, as someone who ought to be doing something concrete, increase. If not him, and his beloved nature-loving commune, who? But what can they really do? “Did the Stone say anything...” 

But Lottie has already skipped off with her football. 

The End, for now.