The Windvale Sprites (13 page)

It hovered a few feet in front of Asa and seemed to be studying him carefully. Then it made a few gestures with its arms and several others came forward, carrying items which they laid at Asa’s feet. He leaned forward and looked at the gifts, chords of woven thread and grasses, strings of beads and plaited strips of fabric.

The large sprite gestured again and one of the sprites came forward. Asa recognised his friend who pointed down to the trinkets on the grass. Then it flew in close, right up to his face so that its eyes were level with his, reached out and placed its hands on his temples. Asa heard a haunting, musical voice deep inside his head.

Thank you
, it said.

Then, on an invisible signal, the whole swarm lifted into the air as one and came together in a huge luminous cloud above him. It morphed and shifted in the sky like starlings coming in to roost, before a thin line started to break away and snake back across the moor. Other lines snaked from this one and soon the points of light were dispersing in all directions across the landscape.

Asa watched until the last one had blinked out of sight, slowly gathered the gifts they had left, and got to his feet. He took one last look at the moonlit moor and turned to start the long journey home.

Mackenzie Crook is a hugely diverse actor who has played a wide variety of roles, from Ragetti in the first three record-smashing, swashbuckling
Pirates of the Caribbean
films, to the wonderful character of Gareth in
The Office
and the critically acclaimed Konstantin in the Royal Court’s version of
The Seagull
.

The Windvale Sprites
is his first book.