The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

spurred into motion again by her furry companions, and passed them by. As she merged into the blackness of the passageway, Meli thought she saw something resembling a hammer dangling from her sleeve. She must be mistaken she thought. The door slammed.
    Meli exchanged looks with her husband. Cal’s open jawed, frog-eyed expression of bafflement said it all. This was his first real experience of their neighbour. Now maybe, he wouldn’t be so quick to ridicule her when she said Elsa made her nervous. Meli shrugged. Together they turned and began walking back up the slope.
    “Have you seen the new notices?” David came pounding towards them, then skidding to an untidy halt, turned and paced them as he gushed. “Elsa has put up some more signs. We watched her do it.” David led them to the top of the track, panting and bouncing at their sides like an excited Quassi. Two more notices had been put up, hammered to the post (so Meli hadn’t been imagining things), the lettering very distinctive in its thick blood red paint on the coarse untreated wood; at least Meli hoped it was paint.
    TORISTS AND EVRYBODY KEEP OUT, OW FACE THE CONSEKWENCES and TRESPASIS WIL BE DEALT WITH
    Meli gulped. Maybe there was more to Else than just being mildly eccentric.

Chapter 11

    “ Come on girl,” Meli told herself sternly. “Get a move on.” She was sitting at her workbench in the studio. Spread out in front of her was the sketch for the masks she had been commissioned to make. There were three of them, all made to the same design from Modroc. She only had two weeks to complete them and have them delivered. She should have started them at least a week ago, and now she was really pushing it.
    But her mind kept wandering, buzzing about like a busy little bee between flower heads, thinking about Elsa: her disturbing behaviour, her background, in fact all the mysteries surrounding her. She had tried to learn more from the Font of All Knowledge, Mrs. Barber - who, she had been relieved to find was now back to her usual self after her own bout of peculiarity (maybe all the woman in the village were suffering from some strange affliction, which she too, would eventually succumb to? Like the Stepford Wives?) - but Mrs. Barber had been more interested in gaining gossip than sharing any, and had expertly avoided parting with any information. She really was a master at this game.
    Amazingly she knew all about the phone call to Mr. Swindon and her accusation that he let the dog out, and she knew a little about their visitors, including the damage to one of the cars. And without doubt, by the time Meli left the Post Office, any little gaps or hazy details in Mrs. Barber’s knowledge had been whittled out of an unsuspecting Meli with the ease of taking a chocolate button from the mouth of a babe. Meli pledged to herself that she would develop new and far better tactics to outsmart Mrs. Barber.
    She glanced behind her when she heard Quassi scrabble to his feet and her eyes followed as he moved to the door. Bowing, tail rigid at ninety degrees, he pressed his nose to the tiny gap at the bottom of the door. She could hear his breaths snorting beneath the wood. Sliding back her stool she moved towards him. She jumped nervously when Tabby leaped onto the window sill and turning her wizened little face gazed in through her huge amber eyes. Meli suddenly thought about witches and their familiars. Could Tabby be her mistresses eyes and ears? Was she spying on her? Quassi was on all fours and pawing at the door. Meli flung it open and together they burst through. There was no one out there. Even Tabby had vanished as if in a puff of smoke. She watched Quassi raise up his black muzzle, and nostrils quivering, he sampled the air. He obviously did not detect anything of interest as he strolled back into the studio and curled up under her work bench.
    With a final sweep of her wary green eyes around the vicinity, paying particular attention to the tree line where somebody could be observing her, invisible within the dense foliage, she went back inside. Pouring herself a coffee she settled with it in front of her. Within minutes inspiration came and she was soon huddled over her work.
    The alarm went off at 2.45 p.m. Meli had been so embroiled that she had lost all track of time; even her coffee had gone cold. Fortunately she had had the foresight to set it, otherwise she would never have stirred herself to go and pick up the boys.
    “Come on Quassi,”