I awoke with a start, unsure what it was that had broken into my sleep. For a minute I was confused, the room was bright with a pale lemony light but it was clearly not time to get up. It was I realised moonlight. Perhaps the light had woken me? I listened and could hear nothing other than the occasional creaks of the old Elm floorboards in my bedroom. My breath was smoke in the cold sharp air of this winter night. I slipped out of bed, not bothering with my slippers, and clambered up onto the window seat. The glass was thick with frost and the moonlight flooded through it; showcasing the strange geometric crystalline patterns the icy film had formed. I placed my hand on the pane, the cold jolted me but almost immediately the glass beneath cleared. Taking it away I was left with a hand shaped porthole. First I squinted through my middle finger and then shifted my gaze to the palm.
The sight was hypnotic; the garden bathed in moonlight seemed as though I was looking through a pale amber spyglass. There was no colour, but this was no black and white movie rather a symphony of subtle shades. The Cotswold stone walls stood patiently warding the garden from whatever was creeping in the night. The grass was white and sparkled with the ice jewels that had been sprinkled over it. The phlegmatic fir tree stood massive watching on, as the frost glazed the world. It was as if something was calling me. I quickly dressed and made my way downstairs making sure I avoided the steps that squeaked, the ones that every boy knows about. Into the kitchen where the dying embers of last night’s fire was still reddening the mantel piece. The only sound was the ticking of the clock and the faint sounds of my parent’s snores. I quietly slipped the bolts on the stable door to the scullery. As I silently slipped through I was greeted by the joyful wagging of a tail, my dog was always passionate in her love. I fussed her silently, shushed her and bid her lie back in her basket then after slipping on my shoes I slipped the latch on the back door and stepped out.
It was almost painfully cold. I looked around nothing to see but was startled by the sound of a vixen barking nearby. The grass crackled and snapped under my feet. I felt drawn to the fir tree and as I came closer I could see there was a shape on the ground under it. An alien thing not something we had left there the day before. Two mores steps and I too became frost. The shape was human. My skin crawled and the hair on the back of my neck rioted as the shape moved so I could make visual sense of what I was seeing: an old man with ragged clothes and a scabrous face. I was frozen to the spot. And then he spoke.
“So boy, you heard me then?” he smiled showing a perfect set of ivory teeth.
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”
I was a statue
“Mind that wasn’t always the case. You’re lucky. I used to be a werewolf once but not anyMOOOOOREEEEE.”
Charlie Markwick Poet, Storyteller, Writer, Performer yarwnwhispering.co.uk @crescentmen | facebook.com/YarnWhispering
