(04-17-2021, 02:51 AM)ABNARTY Wrote: That is a cool story so far. Now I want to read more.
Very well.
Kittie Bretton placed her bare feet on her bedroom floor and waited for the tell-tale creak that would alert her Mother downstairs.
As the twelve year-old increased her weight onto the smooth-planed wooden boards, Kittie smiled to herself when she realised
she was also holding her breath.
The Summer night was calling to her again and delicately making her way from the bed to the lead-lined window that looked out
towards the sea, the younger sister of Maggie Bretton -who was taken last fall, breathed in the fragrance from their little cottage
garden.
The dark-blue Delphiniums nodded in the occasional breeze as they sat among a bed of pink Phlox and her mother's favourite,
the Foxgloves, stood like a waiting audience to see what would happen next. Gently lifting the window-latch, Kittie allowed her
eyes to be drawn to the panorama of colour below.
The young evening seemed magical to the thin girl with the straw-coloured hair.
Kittie's village lay almost two miles from the Great Sea and from where she currently stood at the half-open window, her eyes
that rivalled the Delphiniums' hue could just pick out the storm lanterns of the out-going fishing boats.
The scent of the Jasmine that huddled under the privot hedges along the sides of the cobbled lane out of St. Martin's wafted
across Kittie's nostrils and seemed to urge the girl to look further out of the window.
She did, just has she had done for the past four nights until Kittie would notice the glow from the downstairs light disappear
and leave the cottage garden in darkness. Then her magical world would be over when it was also assured of it's finishing by
Kittie's mother's footfalls on the stairs.
But for now, the evening belonged to Kittie Bretton and possibly... maybe, the approaching figure coming from the meadow.
Watching the small silhouette making it's way beside the heavy gorse bushes that corralled the infamous pasture where Maggie
had supposedly stolen two years ago, Kittie struggled to keep her thoughts of who this might be rather than dwell on the memories
of that terrible Autumnal night.
The countryside was warned as dangerous. No child was allowed to play there and certainly no girl could visit the fields and woodland
without an adult accompanying. Kittie wondered if the little stranger -in what now she realised was a large floppy hat, had observed
the ruthless monster lurking in the undergrowth.
Mentally tossing out the sad thoughts into the warm evening's gloom, Kittie turned her head from the left and scanned the small lane
that led away from the only place she had ever known. The off-white sea-stones of the single lane seemed ethereal in the oncoming
dusk and as the blue eyes of the girl followed the bone-coloured road that made it's way through the tall cedars towards the strange
plateau, she pondered on what her mother had said that morning about the dwindling occupants of thatched houses known as
St. Martins O' The Green.
The village comprised of only eighteen families now since the work was sparse out here in the county of Abbot's Mount. Because
farming only required seasonal employment and St. Martins was too far from the sea for the fishing option, many of the residents
of St. Martins had moved out to either the industrial town of Kersham or the mining community of Toole.
The disappearances of the girls also hadn't helped.
There were twenty buildings that made up the village and two weeks ago, Connie Marrs' cottage had become the latest empty house
when the woman -who's daughter had repaired clothes and created the quilt that currently occupied Kittie's bed, was said to left in
search of a better income in Durridge. Joannie Marrs had been the fourth victim.
Kittie and her mother would stay, her father had died when she had been a baby and when Kittie had occasionally inquired about him
to her older sister, Maggie had just said it was something that involved a war. Even at her age, Kittie knew it was a subject that she
shouldn't bring up with her mother and since the wound of losing her oldest daughter was still raw, Kittie's assumption had
been reinforced.
Best to just enjoy her magical evenings and the leave the past to the past.
Jack Bulmer's dozing sheep now resided in a field closer to the sea due to what Kittie had overheard two nights ago about how a
passing tinker had seen someone prowling about in the area that the stranger was approaching from. Could this be the 'someone'
coming for the village's next casualty?
Glancing once more to check on the dark shape that was heading towards the wooden gate that usually prohibited Farmer Bulmer's
sheep from consuming the contents of her mother's garden, Kittie focused back on the serene place beneath the line of cedars that
hid the lawn from the main road branded Calder's Way.
It held a strange aura, this rabbit-clipped grass that spread across nearly an acre of level land and the guardian-like trees that shadowed
the lawn. No one had ever built their home on the surreal plain and nobody had ever considered allowing their sheep to graze on it.
Yet, there it was. A plateau that implied it was once a hill and Kittie's imagination tugged to be let free of what may have created the
greensward. The legends had been poured over by herself and her older sister -before the horrible deed of course, and it had always
been a bone of contention to which was true.
Maggie had believed the tale that a Giant called Mellifor had fought with the sea serpent named Old Figgur sometimes told by the
fishermen who lived down in Durridge. The families would come to St. Martins when the village held the Summer fete on the lawn
-a celebration thar was two weeks from today, and some of the older men of Durridge would refill their flagons with mead and tell
their yarns to the children until the sun drew shadows from the surrounding cedars.
It was said that Mellifor swung the long-bodied creature above his head and in his verve, tore off the top of a hill that kept the worst
of the inland weather away from a settlement where Druids supposedly dwelt. The herculean man of fable had hurled Old Figgur
beyond the horizon and the uprooted soil had accompanied the monster out to sea to form the little island to the east called Caine's Holf.
But Kittie put her faith in the other story that she'd listened to at the feet of the grizzled man in the filthy sou'wester bonnet and
well-patched, two-sizes-too-big dungarees. Salty Elijah Cole had a better potboiler that told of majick, warlocks and witches.
Kittie grasped the window-sill tighter and stretched her slender neck to see the main character of old Elijah's folk tale, but the the
empty house that once belonged to the family of the village's only brewer hid the gnarled chunks of stones that stood at the nearest
part of the lawn.
The circle of tall monoliths had been built -if you believe the grubby, ancient man without teeth and a penchant for the brew, in tribute
for the great Magician called Phinneas The Cunning.
It was said that it began in a time before towns and villages had reached this part of the land, when huge beasts roamed the open spaces
between the massive forests and the deep, deadly sea. Elijah could be sometimes coaxed into elaborating on the creatures that brooded
in the darkness of the woods and swam in the waters just off where Durridge now sat.
Extracting such detail usually required one of the children visiting the wooden beer-keg with the retired fisherman's empty mug and hoping
the other adults at the Fete didn't notice.
"Aye, there'd be grizzled fiends about the land..." Elijah would growl with a wink. "...And the worst of 'em was Accam Dey, the foul wolf
from the Catskill mountains" he'd growl and take another gulp of his beer. "Ah've heard it said that even the Witches of Underhill were
wary to tread here..." he'd add as he surveyed his awe-faced audience sitting on the grass.
"...but only Phinneas dared to face the brute that could talk like a man" the little girl would hear and ignore the belch.
...................................................
Kittie felt the sudden need to look back at the approaching newcomer at the edge of the bare field and in doing so, pulled herself back into
the safety of the bedroom. Whoever it was, they walked with the impression of intent. The figure had clambered over the gate was now on
the small track that would pass her cottage that bordered the village.
A few moments later, the small person in the wide-rimmed hat clicked open the cottage gate and placed an unshod foot onto the rectangular
stones placed in a herringbone design that patterned the garden path. Young Kittie used all her stealth to half-close the window without a
sound, but there was something the little girl in her dead sister's nightgown will never know and never appreciate the symmetry of her earlier
act.
As Kittie held her breath during her clandestine task, it was the face of the stranger beneath the hat brim that was smiling in the knowing.
The knocking on the door brought everything back into a reality that forced any magical narratives to flee out into the warm summer's evening
and nudge Kittie back towards her bed. But she didn't, instead she flicked her mouse-brown hair to one side and leaned towards the narrow
gap of the open window.
The sound of the deadbolts and the creak of the door ajar announced that the stranger was somehow expected and with Kittie Bretton's brow
twisting into a puzzled frown, she heard the words "Me-name is Peggy Powler and 'Ah'm the last of the Underhill Witches... 'Ah believe yer'
have a problem?".
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.