The Windvale Sprites (12 page)

 

Quaking with rage, he summoned all his strength and began to haul himself up out of the chair, which up to now had been hidden. The clumps of hair fell away from what once may have been an impressively embroidered coat and breeches but now they were so rotten they resembled filthy lace and a cloud of moths flew up into the air in surprise. Tooth batted them away from his face and looked for the sprite.

‘Where is it? Help me find the devil! I’ll skin it alive! Where is it, boy?’

‘I’m not going to help you kill it,’ said Asa. Though he knew this would enrage Tooth even further he also knew that he could leave at any time and the frail old skeleton would not have the strength to follow.

‘He’s my friend,’ Asa continued. ‘He brought me here.’

‘Your friend?’ Benjamin Tooth was incredulous.

‘Yes,’ said Asa. ‘He wants the statue back and I came to help.’

At this, instead of flying into another torrent of fury, the wind seemed to go out of Tooth’s sails and he slowly sank back into his chair where he sat breathing heavily.

‘It’s mine,’ he eventually said. ‘I found it.’

‘You stole it,’ said Asa feeling braver by the second. ‘I read your journals, I read how you destroyed their home and looted their treasures.’

Asa felt the sprite land on his shoulder, listening.

‘Nonsense,’ said Tooth. ‘I was doing it in the name of science, in the name of human progress.’

‘You were doing it to get rich and famous,’ said Asa.

‘But instead somebody else must have got rich and famous while I slept for two hundred years in this confounded chair. And now you’re all “friends” and you live together in perfect harmony.’

Asa thought. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nobody else knows about them, only you and me.’

This was obviously a surprise to the old man and the ugly scowl left his face.

‘Really? Nobody knows?’

‘Nobody.’

‘They’ve not been discovered? Written about? They’re not kept as pets or in zoos?’

‘They still live on the moor, in secret, and no one knows they are there.’

‘Then how did you come to be here, boy?’

‘I found one in my pond, after a storm. Then I found your journal.’

Tooth’s head dropped on to his chest and he seemed for a long time to be thinking. Eventually he looked up again and raised his hand.

‘Help me up, boy,’ he said.

Asa stepped forward with the sprite still on his shoulder and offered his hand to Tooth, whose skin felt like paper, cold and dry. The old man eased himself up.

‘Help me upstairs,’ he said and took his first, unsteady step for hundreds of years.

‘Lean against me,’ said Asa, and they started to make their way to the stairs. Tooth looked at the piles of books, the broken shelves and the thick cobwebs.

‘When did the cleaner last come?’ he asked.

‘Probably about 1790,’ said Asa.

 

It was slow progress up the stone steps to the house. Benjamin Tooth’s thin frame could hardly support his ancient, moth-eaten clothes and Asa was worried that if he fell his bones would crumble under the weight.

Eventually though, they made it to the top of the stairs and Asa helped Tooth through the door into the hallway where he stopped to get his breath back. Tooth lifted his head and looked around at the derelict house, the rotten stairway and the piles of dead leaves.

‘Oh my,’ he whispered. ‘I have been asleep a long time.’

A sadness softened his craggy features.

‘I had so much I wanted to do.’

He leaned again on Asa and started towards the door leading to the room of artefacts and equipment.

‘My laboratory,’ he wheezed. ‘Must get on … work to do.’

Once in the cluttered room Tooth hesitated again as he surveyed filth and mess. He sighed deeply.

‘My work. How could it be?’

For the first time Asa felt a pang of sympathy for the old fellow.

‘It’s been a long time, Mr Tooth,’ he said. ‘Everyone thought you were dead.’

By now it was getting dark outside and the candle was the only source of light in the dingy room. Asa thought he saw the glint of a tear drop from Tooth’s eye and roll down his ancient cheek. He gestured toward a large chair that still sat behind a great desk. Asa helped him hobble over and brushed the leaves and dust away. His bones creaked as he lowered himself into the chair and looked at the items on his desk. He reached forward and opened a large, leather-bound volume. But the paper was dry and brittle and flaked away in his fingers like confetti. He lifted an inkpot and turned it over but the ink had dried to a black stain and nothing dripped out. Tooth sighed miserably.

‘Tell me about the future,’ he said.

‘The future?’ said Asa.

‘Yes, now, the present day. What happens in the time of Queen Elizabeth the Second?’

‘Well,’ Asa began, ‘we have televisions now, and computers …’

‘Tele-what?’ Tooth interrupted.

‘Television. It’s a box with pictures on it, in it, moving pictures, we call them programmes.’ Asa was aware that what he was saying must have sounded ridiculous.

Tooth was silent.

Asa continued. ‘And we have cars and aeroplanes and helicopters … flying machines.’

‘You have a flying machine?’

‘Well, I don’t have one, but there are, you know … you can go in them, buy a ticket and fly to the other side of the world in just a few hours.’

Benjamin Tooth slowly raised his hand.

‘That’s enough,’ he said and sat in silent thought for a good long while.

Eventually he said, ‘I’m tired. It’s been an exhausting day.’

He thought for a while longer and then continued. ‘My time here is long since gone. And I must give back what is not mine.’ He lifted the hand that still gripped the sprites’ totem pole so tightly. ‘Help me take it back.’

‘We can take it back for you, Mr Tooth.’

‘No. I want to see my beloved Windvale Moor again. Breathe in the air.’ Then he looked up with worried eyes. ‘It is still there, isn’t it? The moor? Have they built upon it? Is there a city in its place?’

‘It’s still there.’ Asa reassured the old man and went over to help him up.

Once outside Tooth turned around to look at his house. The sight of the tree growing out through the roof seemed to amuse him and he tutted and shook his head.

They continued out of the gate and up a grassy bank, where Tooth stopped and looked for a long moment out across the moor. The sun had set but a bright band of blue still hung along the western horizon and a full moon was already high in the sky. The moor looked vast and wild and more beautiful in this light than Asa had ever seen it. He turned to Tooth.

‘Where to?’ he asked.

‘Yonder.’ The old man pointed to the crest of a hill some way off. ‘But you’ll have to carry me.’

Asa bent down and lifted the old man, cradling him like a baby. He weighed next to nothing and Asa felt as though he were only carrying a bundle of musty clothes. All this time the sprite was flitting excitedly around, racing ahead and doubling back. Though he could no longer see them, Asa could sense the other sprites not far away, a hundred pairs of tiny eyes watching the progress of the odd-looking couple across the moor.

 

When at last they came to the top of the hill Asa set Tooth down on his feet and steadied him with his arm.

‘Now,’ said Tooth as he held up the twisted claw that held the fairy statue. ‘Take it away.’ Asa took hold of it and started to prise open the gnarled fingers and nails. He winced as the old man’s knuckles cracked and some of the fingernails splintered and broke but Tooth didn’t seem to notice – he was gazing at the landscape with a look of peace and calm.

At last Asa worked the statue from his grasp and the sprite flew down, reaching out a delicate hand to stroke the intricate carving. Then, looking down the slope, it gave a silent signal at which half a dozen others appeared and approached on cellophane wings. They took hold of the totem and lifted it away from Asa’s hands, upward into the sky.

Tooth watched it go and nodded.

‘It’s as it should be,’ he said. Just then, a wind stirred the grasses in the valley below and, with a soft rustle, it climbed the slope towards them. Benjamin Tooth removed his tricorn hat, closed his eyes and, as the wind passed by, his ancient body crumbled to dust and blew away on the breeze.

The ragged clothes fell to the grass and the last of the moths fluttered off to find a new home.

Suddenly Asa was alone and exhausted. He felt ecstatic and dreadfully sad all at the same time. He needed to rest before the long cycle ride home so he lay back in the long grass and stared up at the cloudless evening sky.

*

Asa awoke several hours later and took a few moments to remember where he was. The moon was directly above him and his clothes were wet with dew. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked about. All traces of daylight had gone but the orange glow of a distant town marked out the horizon and a billion stars peppered the vast dome of the sky.

But as Asa gazed he noticed a scattering of stars below the line of the horizon and as he watched he was convinced that they were moving. Way off in the distance the flecks of yellow light were gathering together and weaving over the grass in a line towards him. As they came closer more lights started to appear across the moor and moved in to join the procession. Closer and closer they came and soon Asa was aware of a strange music drifting on the breeze, a high, humming chorus of intricate harmonies like a thousand microscopic violins.

As the lights reached the valley below him and started to climb he was aware of more behind him and suddenly the music was all around. And then he started to make them out, sprites, thousands of them, and each one carried a tiny lantern with a single glow-worm inside. They fanned out in front of him, settling on the grass and gorse bushes or hanging in the air. Some were so high they mingled with the stars and some passed close enough to touch. Those that were close Asa could see were making the music by rubbing together the thorny ridges along their arms and legs and the
glow-worms
dimmed or brightened with each change of pitch. Asa watched in wonder as they gathered from all corners of the moor and surrounded him completely. Then the music changed to a low hum. Eight sprites came forward holding the rescued statue, which they set gently on the ground. The music rose again into a crescendo and the swarm parted to let through a single, magnificent-looking creature.

It was bigger than the others and its wings and limbs tapered to thin tendrils that snaked in the air. It looked older than the rest, with large, horny ridges on its skin and huge, iridescent eyes.