1st Chapter/Preface

Preface

 

The black beast slowly, slithered around the trunks of the old oak trees. He caught the aroma of bodies he had smelt before. He had not eaten for a few days and the pangs of hunger drove him to investigate, hoping this was an easy meal. He could hear the sound of a human being, but also another sound very similar. This sound and smell he knew he had encountered before, but he could not picture what creatures owned it. A vague memory told him that it was tasty, but hard as he tried to think, he just could not remember what being the smell and sound belonged to. He knew the scent of humans; he was brought up as a kitten in one of their houses. He had fond memories of his youthful times there, but they were blighted by his last year with humans. He had grown full size and he smelt fear in the people who he lived with as a youngster. They banned him from the house, kept him in a garden area. This was ok, he had a small shed to sleep in and he liked the solitude. Then it became worse; the humans tied a chain around his collar and restricted his movements to the length of his body.

 

One day he was taken away in a vehicle and abandoned a long way from home. He ran off as soon as they untied him. Initially he was frightened and it was not long before he became quite hungry. He knew he had to find food and it did not take long to find a sheep.

 

This was many seasons ago, his mind clicked back to the now and he decided to start the hunt. The anticipation made his tummy rumble and he felt all is senses tingle into action as he crouched low into stalking mode and very slowly proceeded in the direction of his prey. He was down wind and could smell and hear them, but they were not in view yet. He moved towards the next tree keeping his body obscured from the direction of the noise. Very slowly he stretched his neck around the trunk. Through the gaps of all the vegetation he could just make out some movement. They had not yet realised he was there.

 

He made another approach to the next tree, the scent now much stronger. A niggling thought in his head was annoying him; he knew this smell and sound. It was similar to humans but definitely different. He is frustrated that he could not picture what animal it was from. Their movement was obscured by low ferns and he decided to risk raising his head and see over it. He saw a human; a female and then saw a flash of something much smaller. He kept absolutely still and intently watched.

 

Another flash of a small being, then another. This time it stopped in his field of view and he suddenly remembered seeing these before. They were like tiny humans. That is as much as he could remember, try as he could he could not recall where, when of whether he actually tasted them.

 

They looked easy to catch. He would never attack a full-sized human, something deep inside told him that was not a sensible thing to do, but the little ones, well yes. He played out his strategy in his head. He would keep low and patiently move towards them. If they started to run, he would sprint towards the nearest one, grab it and continue running for a while, away from the large person.

 

He moved closer, he kept so low that he still could not see them, but he was closing the gap and a pang of hunger pushed him further. He stopped and risked lifting his head again. There were lots of them, they were running around the big person all hand in hand and making a lot of noise.

 

He prepared his mind and muscles for the attack, carefully judging the distance to travel. If he was a human scientist, he would have run complicated mathematical formulas to work out the exact stride distance he would need to reach them, but thousands of years of hereditary genes ran that computation in milliseconds. He lifted his head again ready to pounce but saw that they had all stopped playing and were looking directly at him….

         

                           ……………………………………………………………….

 

The elderly lady smiled and laughed as the group of eight tiny people danced around her, hand in hand forming a ring. She was not a tall lady, especially now that she had reached her twilight years, but her little friends were barely higher than her knees. They were clearly very familiar with each other and their joy and pleasure filled the air with their voices.

 

In complete unison the little people abruptly stopped and all turned a looked in the same direction.

"What's wrong?" The lady asked with concern in her question.

They did not answer and the lady turned towards where they were all watching.

"My God… it's the Beast of Dartmoor!" The woman shouted in a panic as she observed a very large black cat suddenly get up and run towards them. It was about twenty metres away and her immediate reaction was to walk backwards fast.

 

She felt intense panic and a deep pain started in her chest. As she backed away, she heard her little friends make a sound that she was familiar with. "Hmm-ning, hmm-ning". She felt herself falling as she backed away; she had tripped on a log. The drop seemed to happen in slow motion in her mind, her chest was very tight and she briefly felt the impact as she hit the ground. One of her arms was behind her and a clear snapping noise was the last thing she remembered before passing out.

 

The little people continued their strange verbal noise and watched the beast initially sprint towards them, then abruptly stop rigidly still. After around ten seconds the menacing beast slowly put its head down, turned completely around and slowly walked away. Four of the small people kept the humming sound going and the other four ran towards the lady, who was laying completely still with eyes shut, with an arm awkwardly twisted behind her back.

 

"Jean…Jean! Are you ok?" An older male asked with panic in his voice. "Jean wake up!" He pleaded as he stroked her face attempting to make her eyes open. There was no reaction from Jean. She had gone very white with no movement.

                      

   ……………………………………………………………………………

 

The beast walked and walked oblivious to what had happened, seemingly in a trance. It reached a tall hedge with a hole in and squeezed through. On the other side it lay down and slept. Eventually, it awoke and gazed around. He was suddenly alert and very puzzled to how he was in the place he recognised as the entrance to the woods he had taken recently. He looked at the hole in the hedge and a feeling of dread and horror filled him. He got up and ran across a road, jumped over a gate into a field and ran as fast as he could away from the woods.

                             

 ………………………………………………………………………….

 

Jean woke up, she was in bed in her lovely cottage. A pain in her shoulder hit her and she winced and made a crying sound.

"Jean, oh Jean thank goodness you've woken. We've all been desperately worried about you."  An elderly looking gentleman asked with a relieved look.

Jean gazed at the little man. He was sitting on a chair next to her bed, his legs straight and feet extending over the edge of the seat. Although he was sitting upright, his head was only half way up the back of the chair.

"How long have I been in bed?" She asked groggily. Then remembered the big black cat. "Oh hell, there was a black panther wasn't there?" There was panic in her voice when she asked, "is everyone ok?" Her voice rose with every syllable as dread of losing one of her dear friends hit her.

"Relax Jean, you were the only casualty, everyone's fine. We stopped the beast in its tracks and did our little thing!" He said proudly.

Continuing he added, "You've broken some bones in your shoulder and arm, we think. But what's more concerning is we think you have an issue with your heart. We think you should call an ambulance and get it all sorted. Obviously, it would not have been sensible for us to do this".

"Of course, thank you for getting me here. Talking of which how the hell did you do that?" Jean asked genuinely interested.

"Ah well, we had to use one of our wheelbarrows and the eight of us lifted you on!" He answered with pride.

Jean tried to picture this and felt very embarrassed deciding not to go into further details of how these tiny people managed to get her from the hill in her large area of woodland, all the way back down to her cottage, then get her upstairs and into bed. Then put her night clothes on! She began to think about how she could contact the emergency services for an ambulance. She had no phone and had always used her car to drive to the nearest phone box. Then she had a thought.

"What day is it?" She asked.

"Tuesday morning." Answered the tiny man who was called Spale.

"I've got a few friends coming over for afternoon tea. I'll wait for them to arrive." She said relieved that she had a solution.

 

Two weeks later a taxi arrived in front of the cottage and Jean got out and walked slowly up the beautiful path to her front door. The taxi drove away and Jean smiled as she sucked in the fresh country air. This was the longest she had been away since she moved there fifty odd years ago.

She hobbled towards a bell the dangled from the porch. Rang once, waited, rang again then a third time. She entered her house and waited knowing that in a short while, eight small people would be bounding in.

 

Sure enough, barely five minutes later in they came with big smiles and relieved looking faces.

"Oh Jean, we've been really concerned. We had no idea of how you were and even if you would return." Spale said with a little tear slowly creeping down his cheek.

"Well, I'm fine now. I have to have this cast on for another few weeks and my heart has steadied." Jean said pointing to the obvious plaster cast. The little people looked at the cast which made her left arm rigid. They all chatted for ages. Jean explaining what happened in the hospital and the little people describing what they had been doing. Then Jean went very solemn.

"This has made me realise how vulnerable I am, or more importantly made worry about what will happen to you guys when I'm gone".

Spale spoke, "Yes, we…, well us elders," pointing at the three other older people. "We think it's time to get Camilla involved. We have been working hard on this."

Jean knew what they meant and asked how she could help.

"We have to find a reason for her to come here. We need you to do some research on properties…."

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1

(Note there is a list of main characters at the back of this book for reference)

 

“Next left, I mean this left…., stop!” Camilla shouted. Aaron squeezed the brake pedal hard with his size twelve shoe and the little VW Polo squealed to a halt, causing the maps on Camilla’s lap to fire into the footwell onto her bare feet.

“Ouch, you didn’t have to do an emergency stop,” she grumbled. “Well, the way you shouted I thought we were going to hit something.” Aaron quickly replied.

He reversed the car back the six meters that they overshot and looked at Camilla incredulously. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! That’s just a track, are you sure it’s the correct left turn?” 

Camilla pulled the map and the estate agent’s directions back up to her lap and after a few seconds replied, “Well, I think so, there should be a right hand turning in about a quarter of a mile.”

 

The car slowly made its way along the narrow lane, the ferns and thorny bushes lightly scraping along both sides of the car. Aaron’s breathing became visibly louder as each audible scrape of vegetation passed his eyes on his side. 

“This really doesn’t seem right Camilla, I’m not doubting your navigational skills but….” 

“But what,” she said in a slightly annoyed voice. “Here, you have a look yourself, stop anywhere. I can’t see any other cars around, come to think of it I haven’t seen another car for what… well at least 15 minutes.” Camilla said indignantly.

“Let me find a place to turn around, then I’ll have a look,” he calmly replied. They continued passing a few farm gateways but not with enough room to do a three-point turn. “You know, we must have travelled at least a half a mile.” Aaron remarked with a spike in his voice. 

“There, on the right, there’s a chance.” Camilla pointed out.

 

Aaron slowly entered the opening, easily clearing both edges of the car and stopped. He took the map and directions from Camilla and began his pondering. Camilla, now calmed down after the last stressful five minutes, started to take in what was outside. In front of the car, a track headed straight on, then immediately into a thick wooded area.  She saw something move in the darker shade of trees, about fifty metres on, as it crossed the track. 

“What’s that?” she shouted, making Aaron jump. 

“What’s what?” he said annoyingly. 

Camilla continued, “there’s some sort of animal up there, I think it’s a fox, or maybe a badger...” 

Aaron gazed down the lane for a few seconds, “Nope, can’t see anything,” he declared.

“There was definitely movement down there,” Camilla said defensively, as she looked at Aaron, whose attention was not on the track ahead, but was to the right of the car. 

“What the hell? Can you see this?” he asked. Camilla leant forward and saw a large wooden box, painted green. Fixed to the side of the box was a smaller box with a slot large enough for letters. Painted very neatly on the big box was the house name, ‘Sparks Cottage’. 

“I guess that’s their post box, Camilla said, not impressed by Aaron’s change of subject.

“No, not the post box, the sign next to it,” Aaron said.  

 

Camilla leant over more and saw it; a hand painted ‘House for Sale’ sign that was fixed to a little post.

“This can’t be the one we are looking for, we’ve got another two turnings to go yet, and there is no estate agents sign.” Camilla said with a frown. 

“A house for sale.” Aaron thought aloud, “I wonder what size it is and how much they want for it?” 

“Sparks Cottage, that’s what it’s called, look.” Camilla noticing the name.

“Unusual name,” she commented, “I wonder how they came up with that?” she said with a quizzed look.  Then, remembering that Aaron suggested they take a look, she continued. “Don’t be ridiculous, any property out here will be detached, probably have land and would be more than five times our budget. We’ve already found out that it is very unlikely we will be able to afford our ‘house in the country’, unless we go to a country town, in its seedier part and find a little two bed terrace.” 

“Yeah, you’re right, but I’m curious, let’s take a look.” Aaron suggested.

“I don’t know, could be dangerous, we’re miles from anywhere and it could be a killer’s trap.” Camilla timidly replied. “Anyway, why put a ‘for sale’ sign three metres in from a lane, that probably only gets one car a day passing? Too weird for us, just turn around and get us back on the route,” she added.

“Come on Cammy, where’s your sense of adventure? You never know it could be a dream come true!” he teased her.

 

She thought about it for a while and said, “OK, you’re a big guy, you can use your six-foot, six-inch height and physique to scare most people; nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Aaron was indeed tall, also strongly built. He kept his brown hair that matched his eyes, fairly short. He liked to wear shorts anytime that he was not at work and only on the coldest days did he wear long trousers. Born and raised in the south west of London, he moved to Twickenham to work in a food production factory as an apprentice. He met Camilla, three years ago at a mutual friend’s party. They married last year and live in a rented apartment, close enough to Heathrow Airport to hear the take-offs and landings of all the aircraft, despite having triple glazing.

 

Camilla was quite a striking woman. With her long dark brown hair and a skin complexion that tans at the mere sight of sunshine, she was often assumed to be of Mediterranean descent. She rarely dressed to be attractive, preferring comfortable and practical clothing, but always caught men’s eyes.

Over the last six months, they had increasingly more discussions about getting out of the noisy, polluted London area and living in the country. Even though they had always been ‘townies’, Camilla in particular had strong yearnings to breath fresh country air every day. This was all enforced by the countryside nature documentaries, along with ‘a house in the country’ type television programs they watched. The discussions about moving eventually turned to checking online to see what the current market costs of property were in these rural areas.

 

They had discussed which county they would like to live in and Aaron, knowing that he still had to work at his factory, narrowed the choices down to Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire or Devon. All of which had railway routes that would take him close to his place of work.

After a night of discussions, they could not narrow it down any further. Camilla woke up the next morning and said to Aaron, ‘I want to live in Devon.’ Aaron enquired why particularly there and got the answer that, ‘it feels like the right place.’

 

Over the years he had known her, he always respected her ‘feelings’ and without any other reason to support Devon, they started to look at specific properties there. With only a small budget, they found their options limited to the larger towns, mainly ex social housing. That was how they ended up searching for a house in the heart of Devon.

 

Aaron drove slowly onwards, but only for around fifty metres. They had entered the woods and the track ended with a reasonably sized turning circle, with a pretty gateway that took the driveway onwards into the woods further.

“I guess we’ll just park here and walk?” he suggested

Camilla looked anxiously at Aaron and said, “maybe we should turn round and go, I…. I’m a little frightened.”

Aaron took her hand and said, “don’t let your imagination run wild Cammy, we’ll be fine, come on.”

 

Camila reluctantly joined Aaron getting out of the car and walked up to the gate.

“Wow, that’s a very tidy and neat track with a lovely lawned type edging,” she commented gazing at the driveway that bent round to the right, then left. 

They passed through the gate, Camila holding Aaron’s hand tightly and walking very close to him as they made their way along the track, that was gravelled with not a single weed or bit of grass showing.

“Have you got the feeling we are being watched?” Camilla asked

“Not really, but I know you and your feelings,” he commented

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She said defensively.

“Well actually, I mean I trust your feelings, they’ve been right too often before.” They looked at each other, then slowly turned around a few times, searching for any movement in the trees that surrounded them and listening for any sounds. 

 

The sound of a small twig cracked lightly in the silence and both their heads turned immediately towards the noise.

“Hello?” Aaron spoke out, “if there is anyone there, we are enquiring about the house for sale?”

Silence. They waited a while, then moved off again following the path around the left bend and saw at the end of the driveway ahead a small gate. Approaching quietly, they stopped at the gate and neither spoke as their eyes soaked in the scene of a beautiful, but small cottage.

 

A garden path ended at a curved top wooden arched doorway in the centre of the home. There was a window to the left and one to the right, with duplicate windows above them on the upper floor. The roof was a steep incline with black, shiny tiles. The walls were a bright cream. To the left of the house was a lean-to and to the right another gate. The track they had walked along to this gate carried on around the house to a perfect looking garage with its doors closed. In front of the house was a typical country front garden, that must have won prizes for the best kept garden in Britain. It was immaculate, and styled in a country garden layout. There were bushes and plants that neither of them knew the names of, that were trimmed to perfect shape with no dead leaves showing. The lawned area was curved and meandered between the flower beds with no weeds visible anywhere. There were fruit trees with the beginnings of apples, pears, plums and cherries.