The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter #03 - The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood by Susan Wittig Albert

Author:Susan Wittig Albert [Albert, Susan Wittig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781587248344
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2006-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

20

Half of One, Half of Other

As the party-goers were arriving at the Raven Hall reception, eager to see the mysterious Mrs. Kittredge, the children—Caroline, Deirdre, and Jeremy—were making their way through Cuckoo Brow Wood in search of fairies. They were accompanied by Rascal, the village dog, who was guiding them with the aid of a map provided (yes, it’s true) by Bosworth Badger.

At mid-morning on Saturday, at Belle Green, where he lived with Mr. and Mrs. Crook, Rascal received a caller: the badger boy Thorn, who handed him a roll of paper and a note from Bosworth Badger. Bosworth wrote that he had searched the History and found several entries recorded by his grandfather, documenting the location of a fairy village on the bank of Fern Vale Tarn. He could not, of course, be sure that the village still existed and he rather thought that it had actually been occupied by a family of dwelves, which were a different and more problematic sort of creature than the conventional Oak Folk. But he hoped that the map would be of some use to Rascal and the children, and wished them every success in their expedition.

“Dwelves?” wondered Rascal, who had never heard the word. It suggested its own meaning, of course. A dwelf must be something between a dwarf and an elf—although what the badger meant by “problematic,” he couldn’t guess. Still, he supposed it didn’t matter what they were, at least as far as the children were concerned. A fairy was a fairy, be he elf, dwarf, dwelf, Folk, goblin, or any of the myriad nature spirits who occupied the Land between the Lakes long before humans came on the scene.

“You’ll stop for a bite of something?” Rascal asked the badger boy politely.

Thorn shook his head. “I’ve another errand,” he said, and grinned. “Good luck!”

When Thorn had gone, Rascal unfolded the map and studied it until he had all the details by heart—not having any pockets, he couldn’t take it along. On the map, Fern Vale Tarn, a smallish lake, lay cupped in a hollow near the top of Claife Heights, not far below Raven Hall. This was the darkest, oldest part of Cuckoo Brow Wood, which was itself the oldest and darkest forest in the area, a remnant of the old, dark forests that had once covered all of the Land between the Lakes. The path leading to the tarn began from just beneath Holly How. It forked several times, with branches shooting off in different directions, but Rascal thought he could make out the way to the tarn. Badger had drawn an X at the south end of the small lake, and printed Supposed site, Fern Vale Village beneath.

Well, thought Rascal, as he folded up the map, this was quite encouraging. The Folk or dwelves or whatever they were might not live there any longer, but at least he knew that they had lived there, once upon a time.

The drizzle was just ending when the group met at the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.