At night Edgeland crept like the tide from low places and backwaters. It rose from the ditches and from under the sea, up over the banks of the shore, rising higher and higher with the night, until it swirled around streetlamps and newspaper boxes and up roads and alleyways, rising higher and higher until it enveloped houses and then neighbourhoods, rising higher and higher it soon rose as high as the moon and lapped at the stars.

As it rose it transformed.  First the air seemed to crinkle, and then straighten out.  The sky drew back, and the sides crowded in.  It grew a little darker and the moon shone more coldly than before.  Everything grew a little sharper and clearer.

Edgeland swirled with long tendrils up alleyways and laneways, and into basements, filling valleys and ravines and growing more and more until it swelled up hills and over ridges overtaking entire communities from the lowest vale to the highest steeple.  By midnight it was all Edgeland.

On nights when the moon was full, the air was crystalline.  There was a subtle rise of excitement, and just a breath of anticipation – a sense of wakefulness.

It was never strong. It was just a taste of what lay over the edge.