'Well, there's an old lady there,.' said Simon. 'And she's blind and that's what everybody calls her.'
'Maybe it is a daughter,.' she said. 'How odd. They used to say she was a witch, you know.'
'They still do,.' said Simon with a grin.
'We were terrified of her,.' said his mother. 'We used to call her names and run off.' She shook her head at the memory of it and blushed a little. 'Poor woman. How horrible children can be.'
'Speak for yourself,.' said Simon, grabbing an apple from the bowl and taking a bite. 'Why were you so scared of her?'
'Because of her being a witch, of course,.' she said, laughing to herself. 'Honestly, the nonsense we used to come out with! They used to say she was immensely rich - though if she was, goodness knows why she was living alone in that tiny cottage - and that she captured children who came into her garden and ate them.'
'Ate them?' said Simon, chuckling.
'Yes,.' said his mother with a mock growl. 'Ate them or threw them down a well or something awful! We were terrified! You know, I can still see her standing in the front garden with those two creepy old apple trees beside her. They used to say that the apples were delicious, but how anyone knew I don't know, because they also said that once you took one step on to the lawn she flew at you like a crow and pecked out your heart.'
Simon laughed and his mother couldn't help but join in. 'I mean it,.' she said. 'I was very scared of her. The way she seemed to look through you with those awful eyes of hers.'
'But she's blind,.' said Simon.
'I know,.' said his mother with a shudder. 'It makes no sense, but there you are. I had nightmares about her.'
'There, there,.' said Simon. 'I'll protect you.'
'You won't go up there, will you?' she said.
'Scared I'm going to get pecked?'
'Of course not,.' she said, slapping him on the arm. 'But you won't, will you?'
'No, Mother,.' he said with a sigh. 'I won't. I promise.'
Simon was not quite the child his mother took him for, however, and this promise, like so many other promises he had made, meant little. Simon's ears had pricked up at the mention of the idea that the old lady might be rich. He was sick of stealing pennies from his mother's purse. He was tired of hearing how little money his father had left them.
The following day he walked up Friar's Lane once again. He raised himself up on to the wall and swung his legs over. He sat there looking at the cottage with its broken-backed roof and lichen-covered tiles, its tiny windows peeping out of climbing roses and honeysuckles, and the unkempt lawn with the gnarled, arthritic old apple trees, twisted and deformed by years of pruning.
Simon smiled when he thought of his mother and her nightmares about this twee old cottage and the crabby old crone who lived there. He stretched out a toe towards the lawn and rested his foot there. A blackbird suddenly fluttered past and he snatched his foot back.
Simon shook his head at his own childish jitters, took a deep breath and hopped down as silently as he could. As soon as his feet hit the grass, the old woman appeared at the garden door, like a spider reacting to a movement in her web.
'Who's there?' she said.
Simon held his breath. Old Mother Tallow edged out of the door, cocking her head to one side with the effort of listening. Her eyes seemed to glow like cat's eyes.
Then it occurred to Simon that perhaps the old woman did this every time she left the house, merely as a precaution, and that it was a coincidence that he was there. She was an old blind woman living on her own. It made sense to check that everything was all right before she left the house.
After all, how could she have heard him from inside? In any case, she seemed satisfied there was no one there and began to busy herself at one of the apple trees. When she snipped through a twig, birds took flight once again - wood pigeons this time - noisily wheeling overhead.
The old woman had left the door open and Simon saw his chance. The grass was long and he found that he could move in silence. His route to the door took him horribly near the glass-eyed old woman, but she seemed oblivious to him as she squeezed the secateurs in her bony hands and cut through another twig. The blades flashed in the sunlight and slipped through the flesh of the wood with a loud SNIP and there was something hideous about the relish Old Mother Tallow seemed to take in this cutting. Simon turned away and walked on.
As he walked through the front door he was filled with relief at having eluded the old lady, but this feeling was immediately replaced by one of mounting unease.
He was now in a small house whose layout he did not know. What if the old woman came back inside? What if she tried to attack him? He thought of the secateurs and their flashing blades. What if she was as mad as everybody said?
Simon shocked himself with the matter-of-fact way he picked up the walking stick, but he reassured himself that hitting the old woman would be a last resort. A weapon made him feel more relaxed and he began to look around.
What Simon saw was a disappointment. If Old Mother Tallow was rich, she did not seem to spend her money. The furniture was old and threadbare. A layer of dust and cobwebs covered everything in sight.
The cottage may have looked like a fairy-tale witch's house from the outside, but inside it was mundanely shabby. There was a smell of damp and though a fire burnt in the lounge grate, it seemed colder inside than out. Simon could see his own breath and rubbed his hands together to get some warmth back to his fingers.
He looked around the tiny rooms downstairs with a growing sense that he was unlikely to find anything of value. He lifted cushions from chairs and looked in vases and under ornaments, but there was no sign of any cash or valuables. The kitchen was equally disappointing.
He crept upstairs. He had heard about old ladies stashing money under their mattresses, but not Old Mother Tallow. A search under her sagging mattress unearthed nothing but a hairgrip and two dead woodlice.
Wardrobes, chests of drawers and linen baskets all failed to deliver any riches. Even a promising-looking jewellery box held only a tinny-looking old brooch. Simon caught sight of himself in the dressing-table mirror as he rooted through the old woman's things and a tiny pang of guilt troubled him for a second, but he shook it off with a smile.
Simon crept downstairs again and was about to leave when he noticed in the little hall by the door there was a strange wooden box on a low polished table. It startled him and made him look about and listen for Old Mother Tallow, because he was sure it had not been there before. But when he peeked through a window, the old lady was standing in the same patch in the garden, snipping away at the tree.
The box was made of a reddish wood and seemed to be the only thing in the house not covered in a layer of dust, as if the old woman polished it every time she walked past.
Simon picked it up. It was warm to the touch. There was a carving on the lid, a carving of the front of the house he was in with the lawn and the apple trees. He noticed that when the box was carved there had been five apple trees rather than the four outside. There was even a carving of Old Mother Tallow herself, pruning the trees just as she was doing in the garden outside.
It was a curious thing. The scene was at once crudely rendered and amazingly realistic. As he moved it in his hand, the light played across the polished surface and gave the strange sensation of movement, as if Old Mother Tallow's movements in the garden were being mirrored in the wooden box.
Simon opened it up and whistled silently to himself. The box was packed with crisp 1 notes. They looked brand new, as if they had never been touched. So it was true. The old witch really did have a secret hoard. Simon grinned wolfishly.
He took the money out and stuffed it into the inside pockets of his coat and zipped it up again. He replaced the box and began to leave. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a movement in the carving on the box.
Simon walked out of the house and was comforted to see that Old Mother Tallow was still at work on the trees. He smiled and set off for the garden wall, gently patting the bundles of notes inside his coat.
But he hadn't taken two steps across the lawn when a blinding flash lit up the garden as if a huge but soundless firework had been detonated next to him. The world went white and he felt himself pass out.
When he came round he was still in Old Mother Tallow's garden. He seemed to have woken up on his feet, but whatever had knocked him out had done something to his vision. He could see, but in a different way from before. He had a panic that he had been horribly hurt somehow. He could not feel or move his face.
He wanted to run, but when he tried to move he found that he could not. It was as if he were rooted to the spot. In fact, not only could Simon not move his feet, he seemed unable to move any part of his body. He could look out across the lawn towards where he had been sitting earlier, and he was dimly aware that there were branches to the left and right of him. He seemed to be tied to one of the apple trees.
Simon was cold too. The chill breeze seemed to go straight through him. Had the crazed old woman stripped him? What had she done to him? What was going on? He wanted to struggle but was unable to move at all.
He was aware of a bird landing on one of the branches nearby, but felt it as though it had landed on his bare forearm. He could feel with excruciating sensitivity the prick of its tiny claws as it edged along, then hopped and scurried to the end of the branch. He felt the grip of its feet as though on his own fingers, flexing and squeezing as it shifted its weight before flying off as Old Mother Tallow appeared.
It was then that Simon realised the truth of what had happened, though his mind struggled to accept it. He was not tied to an apple tree. He was an apple tree.
'Now then,.' said Old Mother Tallow, opening and closing the curved blades of the secateurs with one hand and feeling along his arm-branch to his finger-twigs with the other. 'I think we will need to do a lot of work on you. A lot of work.'
Simon let out a scream - a long and painful scream that only the birds could hear - and a flock of startled finches took flight, flapping wildly above the old woman, the cottage and the five gnarled apple trees.
I realised when Uncle Montague had finished his story that I had been sitting on my hands as if to protect them in my imagination from those vicious secateurs of Old Mother Tallow. When I took them out from under my thighs I had lost all feeling in them.
I shook them and wiggled the fingers and Uncle Montague smiled, pouring us both another cup of tea. I wondered aloud if the fog was still as thick as it had been and my uncle said that I should go to the window and take a look.
I was amazed to see, when I pulled back the curtain, that the view was now utterly blank - as if the whole world had been erased and my uncle's house floated in a void. It was an unpleasant and strangely dizzying sensation and I quickly closed the curtain to shut it out.
As my uncle jabbed a poker into the fire I took a stroll about the room. It was full of such an amazing array of extraordinary things that no matter how many times I looked round it, I never felt I saw the same thing twice.
Then I happened to look at a nearby bookcase and saw on one of the shelves a wooden box whose carved decoration I immediately recognised from the story I had just heard. I reached out a hand to touch it, but before I got there my hand seemed to flinch involuntarily and I found that I could not do it. I wondered if my uncle had a story about everything in this room.
My eyes fell upon an elaborate gilt frame hanging on the wall and I was surprised to see that it was empty. It seemed an odd thing to hang on the wall. My uncle suddenly appeared at my side.
'You have noticed the gilt frame,.' he said.
'But why is it empty, Uncle?' I asked.
'Ah, yes,.' said my uncle, nodding sagely. 'Why indeed?'
I had hoped that my uncle might continue and answer this question, but, as so often, he felt no need to say anything further.
'Is the frame a family heirloom?' I asked, gently probing for more information.
'No, no,.' he said. 'Like most of the objects you see in this room, it has simply come into my possession over the years.'
'You are a collector, Uncle?' I asked. I hoped that at last I was going to hear something of my mysterious relative's own history.
'Of a kind, Edgar,.' he said. Again my uncle felt no need to elaborate.
'It must be an expensive pastime,.' I said coaxingly. I could tell that though few of the pieces Uncle owned were what one might call beautiful, some of them were clearly valuable.
'No, Edgar,.' he said. 'They were given to me.'
'They are all gifts?' I said, gazing round and wondering why my uncle should have been the recipient of so much generosity.
'Of a kind, yes,.' said Uncle Montague with an odd wry smile. I obviously looked a little confused.
'As you must realise by now,.' he continued, 'these things around us are - how shall I put it? - possessed of a curious energy. They resonate with the pain and terror they have been associated with. My study has become a repository for such items. I am a collector of the unwanted, Edgar, of the haunted, of the cursed - of the damned.'
I was not altogether happy with the way my uncle looked at me as he said this.
'But, Uncle,.' I said, 'you speak as if the events in your tales actually took place.' Uncle Montague's eyes glittered and his eyebrows rose. I felt that I was being teased and I could feel the colour rise to my face. 'But how could that be possible?' I asked. 'And how could you know, sir? You could hardly be a witness to all these events and it occurs to me that in most cases the principal character in the story is hardly in a position to tell their tale.'
My uncle smiled and held up his hands in defeat.
'As you wish, Edgar,.' said Uncle Montague. 'As you wish.'
I confess I was rather pleased with myself for having stood my ground. My uncle walked to the window, pulled open the curtain and stared resolutely into the fog. I saw his lips moving, though I heard nothing. It was almost as if he were mouthing something through the window to someone outside. I could see no one there, but then the fog was so all-encompassing that there might have been a crowd of suffragettes and I should not have seen them. It was troubling that my uncle appeared so distracted, and again I grew concerned.
'Perhaps it is time you were running along home, Edgar,.' he suddenly announced.
My heart sank. The fog, as I have said, was as thick and uninviting as ever, and besides, I did not want to leave my uncle in such a strange mood. I wondered if I could repair the damage my questioning had done by coaxing my uncle into telling another of his stories.
'I was wondering, sir,.' I said.
'Yes, Edgar?'
'About the gilt frame?' I said, pointing to it. 'I was wondering in what way it was "cursed" or "damned" or what have you.'
'Were you indeed?' he said, turning to face me with a grin. 'But surely you have had enough of a foolish old man's ramblings for one day.'
'Not at all, sir,.' I said. 'Rather . . . that is to say . . . I do not think you foolish, sir.'
'I am glad to hear it, Edgar.'
Without another word, we both walked across the room and returned to our chairs by the fire. Uncle Montague raised his hands to his face as if in prayer and then lowered them to his lap, leaned back into the shadows and began his story.
Christina and her sister Agnes scampered excitedly down the stairs on hearing their mother return. Mrs Webster had been up to London to visit the family lawyer and there was every chance that she had bought them a gift.
'Now, girls,.' she said, as they ran towards her. 'I can see by your faces that you are expecting a gift and you really must not. Mr Unwin says that it is high time we started to live within our means. He is a horrid, impertinent little man, but until circumstances change, we should do as he says.'
'Are we poor then, Mama?' said Agnes.
'Of course we are not poor, Aggy,.' said Christina.
'Don't be so foolish.'
'Not poor,.' said their mother, handing her coat to Eva, the maid. 'But we are far from rich, my chicks, far from rich.'
'What's this, Mama?' said Agnes, picking up a bundle that was leaning up against the wall. Christina eyed it excitedly; perhaps their mother had bought them something after all.
'Oh, that,.' said their mother with a sigh. 'Oh well. Your Aunt Emily insisted that I accompany her to a small auction in aid of . . . in aid of . . . well, in aid of some poor unfortunates whose need is greater than ours and, well, I came away with this.' She tore away a corner of the bundle and revealed an ornate gilt frame.
'It was a bargain, actually,.' said their mother. 'Worth the price for the frame alone. But, girls, you must let me get on. I have no end of things to do before dinner and I really must take a nap. Talking about saving money does tire one so.'
When their mother had gone, Christina clenched her fists and stamped her foot, hissing a complaint about her mother's soft-heartedness.
'How could she spend our money on such rubbish? She cannot even remember whom the auction was for. Our money will probably go to some awful people who are only poor because they don't want to work. Penelope's father says London is full of them.'
Eva tutted loudly and shook her head.
'Your mother is very kind woman,.' she said.
'Shame on you.'
'How dare you criticise me,.' hissed Christina. 'I suppose you think it's very amusing that we are to be paupers.'
'You do not know the meaning of being poor,. ' said Eva.
Christina opened her mouth to reply, but Agnes interrupted.
'Leave Eva alone, Chris,.' she said. 'It's not her fault mother didn't buy us a present.'
Just at that moment their mother reappeared. She had a curious knowing look on her face and Christina was sure she had been listening. She picked up the bundle and took the rest of the wrapping off.