The Windvale Sprites (10 page)

 

Asa turned the page to a beautiful painting of the object (whatever else you could say about Benjamin Tooth, he was a skilled artist).

The sculpture was a carved statue of a young sprite squatting on top of a grotesque, six-legged creature with a long tail that curled underneath to form a base.

Asa could recognise in it the shape of the pond-sprite’s stylised tattoo but this carving was exquisitely detailed. The wings of the sprite showed every vein and even the thorns on its limbs were there.

It reminded Asa of a dragonfly hatching from a nymph.

As he studied the page he suddenly got the feeling that someone was looking over his shoulder. Thinking it was his mum or dad he slammed the book shut and wheeled around. With a frantic, panicked buzz of wings the sprite, which had somehow crept from the burrow and around behind him, zipped upwards and crashed into the glass. Stunned, it dropped again, spun around twice and then darted back inside the burrow.

Asa crept slowly over to the entrance and, clearing the plates of untouched food to one side, he opened the book at the painting and laid it on the ground. Then he retreated to the door and watched. Ten minutes passed, twenty, but then, after half an hour, he thought he saw a movement from within. Sure enough the creature, crawling on all fours, came nervously into view and crouched at the opening. It was watching him. Asa crossed his arms on his knees and laid his head on his arms to show that he was not about to pounce or attack it.

The creature spread its wings and buzzed up into the air, hovering above the book looking down at the picture. Then it turned to Asa and looked at him with an expression of pain and questioning. It slowly held out its long, willowy arms towards him and then dropped on to the page and ran its hands over the painting.

‘I don’t have it,’ said Asa. ‘I don’t know where it is.’ The sprite again reached out its hands as if it were pleading with him.

‘I don’t know where it is,’ he repeated. ‘The old man took it.’

With a flick the sprite’s wings became a blur and it rose slowly into the air. It drifted forward until it was floating no more than a foot from Asa’s face. It filled his vision and he was suddenly aware of nothing else but this incredible thing in front of him. He could see, in magnified detail, every hair on its head, its filament fingers, the hundred glittering surfaces of each hypnotic eye. From somewhere distant he heard an echoing, ringing note and then a word.

Help.

Nothing had been said out loud, the word had been planted without a voice in his brain.

Help.

Asa said nothing but found himself replying:
How?

Help us.
 

I want to.

The creature pointed away.

Home
.

A great sadness washed over Asa as he looked deep into the sprite’s eyes.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you home.’

 

Asa didn’t need any further supplies for this trip. He simply wanted to return the sprite to the moor. Suddenly the whole adventure seemed like a mistake. He was as bad as Benjamin Tooth. What right had he to steal one of these rare creatures from its home and keep it captive? He knew what he had to do: set the sprite free, leave them in peace and never whisper a word about them to another living soul.

He placed his open rucksack on the ground and pointed to it. ‘You go in there,’ he said. ‘You ride in the bag.’ He stepped back and the sprite flitted over to inspect it. It looked at the bag from all angles then settled on top. It dropped inside and then shot out again, circled round and once again came to rest on the bag. It looked at Asa and seemed to be happy enough with the arrangement.

Asa put the bag on his back as the sprite hovered nearby.

‘You get in there,’ he said, gesturing over his shoulder, but it took no notice.

‘OK, well, it’s there if you need it,’ and he stepped out of the greenhouse to fetch his bike.

The sprite seemed to understand the plan and regained some of its former energy and colour. It was constantly on the move, darting into bushes and up into the trees, zipping through Asa’s legs and circling above him.

He wheeled his bike out of the back gate and around to the street. At the first sound of a car the sprite was straight in the backpack and remained there until he was well away from busy roads and human habitation. But as soon as the roads turned into lanes and the town became fields and countryside it emerged again.

The sprite seemed fascinated by Asa’s bicycle, hovering close by and watching the wheels spin, marvelling at the unlikely contraption. Sometimes it flew on ahead and other times it stayed close by. Occasionally it would perch on his shoulder and he could feel the breeze of its wings beating next to his ear. Various times when the road meandered off course the sprite would fly off across a field and be waiting for him on the other side.

He knows the way, thought Asa, so why does he even need me to come? But then whenever a potential danger showed itself, a passing tractor or a large bird overhead, the sprite would seek the safety of the bag and stay there until the danger had passed.

*

When eventually they came to the moor and Asa could take his bike no further, he laid it on the ground and stood for a while to catch his breath.

 

‘There you go.’ He gestured to the wide expanse of waving grasses. ‘Home.’

The sprite hung in the air in front of him.

‘You’re home,’ repeated Asa. ‘This is where I found you, I don’t know
exactly
where you came from.’

The tiny creature darted away for several feet but then stopped and turned again to face him.

‘What?’ Asa asked. ‘I don’t understand.’

The sprite flew in close and hovered right in front of his face.

Come
.

The word hung in his head as if it had been placed there. Asa knew he was supposed to follow.

The sprite then started leading him down the grassy slope and across the moor. Sometimes it was ahead, sometimes behind like a sheepdog shepherding its herd.

But it soon dawned on Asa that they were heading towards Benjamin Tooth’s broken-down house and he hesitated. He remembered the macabre scenes of dereliction and decay and did not want the sprite to see Tooth’s instruments of torture.

‘No, wait,’ he called out to the sprite who was quite a way ahead. ‘Why are we going there?’

He was suddenly aware of a movement to his left and, looking down, he saw another sprite in the grass peering at them. Then a whispering rustle made him look behind and there were three more, and then another, and soon the tiny creatures were all around. They rose up on shimmering wings from the sea of grass and hung there, watching.

Looking back, the sprite was waiting for him. It had a plan and so he followed.

When they got to the house the creature’s mood changed. It no longer led him but hung back and seemed to be urging him on. The sprite could have entered the house through any one of the broken windowpanes or holes in the roof but for the first time it seemed to want to stay close to Asa and be protected by him.

He picked his way over the ramshackle remains of the garden and towards the outhouse where he had entered before. The sprite grew more nervous as they approached and clung on to the back of his head, peering through his hair. As he stepped over the rusty junk the sprite gripped his head tightly.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Asa.

Go on
, said the words in his head and so he continued into the dark interior.

Once inside they stopped and the sprite, little by little, started to look about the room.

It was cloudier today than when Asa had visited before and only the ghostly outlines of furniture could be made out by the dim light that came through the grimy windowpanes.

‘I don’t have my torch,’ said Asa. The sprite settled on the thick stub of a candle, folded its wings around, and, with a sharp, rasping, scratching sound, leapt back as the ancient wick flared up and settled into a steady flame. Asa took up the candle and followed the sprite.

It seemed to be searching for something amongst all the junk. It was momentarily fascinated by the wire tricycle and studied it closely, looking back at Asa as if to say, ‘This is like yours.’

‘I know,’ said Asa. ‘It was made for you.’

The sprite pointed through the door into the next room where Asa had not previously ventured and so together they pushed on into the unknown.

The door opened out into what would have been the hallway of the house with the remnants of a large staircase leading to the upper storey. The whole of one side of the staircase had collapsed and the remaining timbers were so rotten it would have been impossible to climb. The sprite made a circuit of the hallway and then disappeared under the stairs through one of the gaping holes. Asa picked his way carefully over the broken banister railings and peered into the dark space. He couldn’t see a thing but could hear the buzz of wings coming from down below and he realised there must be a cellar underneath the house.

The sprite soon reappeared and seemed to be keen for Asa to follow him down. He made his way over more rotten planks towards the back of the hallway where, in the gloom, he could just make out a small doorway.

 

The door creaked open on rusty hinges and Asa pushed the candle ahead of him to reveal a stone staircase leading down into the gloom. As he gingerly made his way down, the sprite hovered close by. At the bottom of the steps was a large cellar that was filled with bookcases arranged in rows like a library. Boxes and chests took up almost every inch of floor space and everything was draped in thick cobwebs. Whatever the sprite was searching for it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

The only clear space was a path down the centre of the room between the cases and, with his heart pounding, Asa inched his way slowly forward.