The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

quickened her pace. When the farmhouse came into view she was disappointed to see that there was no sign of Quassi. Her lips mouthed a couple of choice but silent swear words. Maybe Elsa had seen him? Maybe she had shut him away somewhere safe? Maybe dead chickens laid eggs, she thought ruefully.
    Clamping her shirt collar rightly around her neck, she ducked under the creepers, and hammered on the door, ignoring the scary images of the huge sentinel spiders that resided there. She was sure she could feel their pitch black eyes boring into her right at that moment. No reply. She didn’t wait. The rain was falling faster now, soft, light pellets that formed a bubble-wrap coating over the dark layers of her hair and her slim shoulders. She would just give the farm yard a quick search before going home and leaving him to find his own way back. Turning, she jogged through the gate and into the yard.
    She was immediately struck by the silence; even the rain seemed too scared to make a sound as it splattered on the cobble stones around her. A shiver trickled down her spine, leaving a trail of perspiration. She was just being silly. From the end of the yard she thought she heard something. On shaky legs she headed towards it. “Quassi,” she called, thinking as she said it that the stupid animal hadn’t learned his name yet. The one word buzzed around her, ringing in her ears like a solitary bluebottle. As she edged forward, she resisted the growing urge to glance over her shoulder, only allowing her eyes to swing right and left. To give in would only encourage her weakness, allowing her jitteriness to transform the sodden shadows into black-clad harpies: obese things with gross sagging breasts that wobbled around their knees, with electric-shock hairstyles and grotesque faces, shuffling slowly but stealthily in her wake, their clawed fingers stretching out towards her throat, like, well like mummified Elsa’s.
    When the cobbles melted away into fringes of long grassy undergrowth that sprouted beneath the lower rung of the wooden fence, Meli was forced to stop. Peering out into the field, she scanned the rain blurred landscape for any flashes of black in the distance. The alarmed screech of a bird, emerging from the tree line way over to her left, made her gasp as her eyes snapped in the direction of the sound. She blinked several times, shedding tiny droplets of rain that weighed heavy on her lashes. Suddenly, her heart lurched sickeningly into her throat and tried to escape on the tip of a scream, when something cold and gristly touched the bare skin on the nape of her neck. A harpy? In one movement her body spun and twisted in the air like a cracking whip. It was Elsa, and the icy claw had been nothing more than the nub of her walking stick. Once again the old woman had managed to creep up on her unheard.
    “What are you doing here?” The damp sheen on Elsa’s face gave her the complexion of a soggy lettuce, green and lined as her eyes glared out from the many folds like two curled black slugs. Her look was far from welcoming.
    “I, I was looking for Quassi.” Meli managed to squeak with some difficulty, while trying to force her startled heart back down her throat. When Elsa scrunched up her entire face in mystification, Meli spluttered. “Quassi, that’s what the boys called the dog.” Meli felt distinctly uncomfortable, threatened by this pigmy of a woman, who was wearing what looked like a creased chocolate-green surgical gown over her bulk. “I’m really sorry if I shouldn’t be here.” Elsa’s eyes, she realised, were looking past her, as though there was someone standing behind her. Slowly, Meli swivelled her neck, pupils dilated, as she peered with some trepidation in the same direction. She swallowed, forcing the final quarter of her heart down her gullet and back behind the safety of her ribs. There was no one there.
    “Well, he’s not here.”
    Who? Wondered Meli. Quassi or the person, imaginary or otherwise. Unexpectedly, Elsa’s lips parted into what might have passed for a smile (or possibly a sneer of malicious intent), revealing that she was about to loose another tooth; one of the lower incisors was wobbling like a broken piano key from the gum. “But I’ll help you look.”
    “Really, there’s no need,” Meli tried to decline. The last thing she wanted to do was take a walk with Elsa, particularly as her damp clothes enhanced her usual body odour, making her smell like one of