The Bet

“Didn’t you say they looked like monks to you?”

“Yes, but if the priory disappeared many years ago, why would anybody want to dress as a monk and worship there now?” Myles shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He suddenly became aware that his father was staring hard at him.

“Strange people are apt to do strange things,” Barnabas replied.

“If they pose a threat to people, and after tonight I have to say that I think they do, I think we need to act quickly before someone really is badly injured or even killed.”

Barnabas stood and thoughtfully refilled their glasses. “I think you are right, son. But we have to tread very carefully on this. To begin with, we don’t want to alert them to the fact that we are trying to find them. I think we need help to get a permanent watch put onto those woods so we can see who is coming and going, or showing an unhealthy interest in the place. It is private property. As the land owner, I will take steps to make sure the fences are heightened, and the appropriate signs are put up warning everyone to stay away from the place. However, that may not be enough to thwart them. This has been going on for years, don’t forget. Whoever is behind it must be elderly by now.”

“Or there are a lot of them,” Myles replied.

Barnabas nodded. “I know. If they are prepared to go out there on a night like this they won’t respect a fence and a warning sign. They will just clamber over everything and scare off anybody who ventures too close.”

Myles paused then and realised that was what his father was getting at. “Like Estelle.”

Barnabas sighed. “Can you remember old Mrs Harrington, the nice old but rather eccentric lady who used to peg her washing out on the line when it was snowing and only fetched it in when it was stiff with ice?”

Myles grinned. “Quite distinctly.”

Barnabas smiled at him. “Well, she began to ramble on about lights in the woods. People listened at first and gossiped a bit but nobody really believed her. She became more and more wild about it and insisted to anybody who would listen that there were horrible creatures in those woods, and they meant harm. People assumed she was going out of her mind, but because she didn’t have any relatives, they couldn’t do anything about getting her looked after. The doctor insisted she was quite compos mentis and was quite capable of looking after herself. Right up until the end, she insisted that someone used those woods, and they were dangerous.”

“I was sorry to see her go,” Myles replied sadly.

“We all were, especially given there are so many questions about her death,” Barnabas said.

“What? I thought she died in her sleep.” Myles froze in the act of taking a sip of his brandy and looked over the top of his goblet at his father. “She didn’t?”

Barnabas shook his head slowly. “It is what people were told to quell the gossip. The facts were strange. She was found sitting up in her chair in the kitchen beside the fireplace. No cause of death could be found other than a tiny mark on the back of her head but nobody could decide what it was. It wasn’t a lump or a cut; nothing like that.”

“Did anybody find out?” Myles asked.

Barnabas shook his head. “It wasn’t only the wound that worried everybody, she had twigs and leaves on the bottom of her skirt just like your lady had. There was also a look of sheer terror on her face. I don’t mean fear, but outright terror. As though she had been scared to death. I can remember the doctor saying that she looked as though she had been petrified at the point of death. There was no obvious sign of injury, though, just the foliage stuck to her clothing and the look of fear. The doctor put natural causes on the death certificate because he couldn’t find any other cause. He couldn’t put that ‘terror’ had killed her now could he?”

“Good Lord,” Myles whispered. He thought about the small, now abandoned, cottage located on the outskirts of the village between the village and the woods, and shook his head.

“I think that she might have said too much to the wrong people about those lights,” Barnabas sighed. “I don’t mind saying that it gives me a very unusual feeling to have seen those lights out there tonight. It reminds me of what Mrs Harrington used to say. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.” He looked at his son. “Mrs Harrington’s cottage has never been sold, nor has anybody lived there since.”

“I know it is falling to ruin,” Myles replied with a nod. “I wonder why the family have never sold it. I heard her son inherited it.”

“Yes, but he died in the war. I don’t think any other relatives have been found. It just sits there, rotting away.”

Myles heard the starkness in his father’s voice and looked up.

“You think there is something odd about that.” Myles knew he was right.

Barnabas sighed. “I just know that every property that becomes available in that village is taken up very quickly. Nary a property stands empty for more than a week. Mrs Harrington’s has stood empty for over ten years now. It is unfortunate, especially seeing as the house stands in quite a nice location.”

Myles nodded. “Right next to the Whistling Woods.”

“Whoever is wearing those cloaks has a lot to hide,” Barnabas warned.

“They are also arrogant,” Myles added. “Once they had been seen they had no qualms about following me home and letting me know that they knew who I was. I cannot help but feel that I was being warned.”

Barnabas nodded. He took a long slug of his brandy and dropped the cup onto the table before him. Leaning forward, he looked at his son. “It is an arrogant thing to do seeing as we own the woods they are trespassing onto. I warn you now, Myles, that if they are not stopped then those woods are going to come down. That will put a stop to them once and for all.”

Myles nodded. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” He leaned forward and carefully turned his attention to the next pressing matter of the evening: his return from London.

Before he could say anything, Barnabas pierced him with a hard look.