The Windvale Sprites by Crook Mackenzie

Author:Crook, Mackenzie [Crook, Mackenzie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780571276141
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 2011-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

Tooth’s House

It took Asa a few minutes to figure out where he was when he opened his eyes. The yellow light in the tent was unfamiliar and he lay there for a while trying to remember.

Emerging slowly, he blinked in the sunlight and looked around. The air was chilly and the grass was damp with dew but the sky was clear and cloudless with the promise of a beautiful autumn day.

He set up his little stove and heated water for a cup of tea, warmed a tin of vegetable soup and as he ate he thought about the day ahead. The first thing he wanted to do was take a closer look at Benjamin Tooth’s farmhouse. He didn’t expect to find anything there but as it was a definite, stone-built part of the story it seemed a good place to start.

He cleared away the stove, zipped up the tent, slung his sack over his shoulder and set out.

As he approached Asa was again overcome by that self-conscious feeling of being watched.

The house was a solid, stone building with a slate roof and, though it had done well to stand up to the ravages of time, the moor was slowly reclaiming it. Grass sprouted between the roof tiles giving it the appearance of a balding thatched cottage and the walls were covered with creepers. At one end a tree had grown up inside the house and burst through the roof where the wind made the branches grow horizontally. An ornate but broken weathervane on a crumbling chimney made the whole place look like a crackpot mechanical device that had been abandoned on the moor. It all fitted in with the description of Tooth and his weird lifestyle.

The front of the house had the look of a stern face frowning down at him and a shiver ran up Asa’s spine. Reaching the edge of what was once a garden surrounding the house he hesitated. The perimeter drystone wall had melted over the years to a long, shallow mound of flat rocks, completely covered in places by a blanket of turf. He picked his way over the boulders and rusty iron railings and made his way towards the entrance.

The front door to the farmhouse was solid wood and, though the rest of the house was crumbling, with windows and shutters hanging from their hinges, the door was locked and impassable.

Asa made his way around the side to where he found a low window with cracked green glass. It was dark inside, but Asa could just make out the shapes of furniture and tattered drapes hanging from the walls.

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