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Authors: Mackenzie Crook
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chopped soft fruit into small pieces – grapes, banana, tomatoes – and poured some honey into a saucer. He gathered a large vase of flowers from the garden, ones that insects seemed particularly to like and even found a few caterpillars, which he put in a jar. Returning to the greenhouse he laid the offerings on the ground in front of the mound and settled again in the far corner to read some more of Tooth’s journal.
16
Destruction
For the next two days Asa spent most of his time in the greenhouse. The sprite eventually became less nervous and would venture out of the hutch and fly up to perch in the tomato vines from where it would watch him reading. But it never got closer than that and it never showed any interest in the food or water he had brought.
Benjamin Tooth, in his writing, was starting to show signs that he was quite as mad as the people of Mereton had suspected all those years ago.
He had become convinced that the tattoo the sprites wore on their chests held some sort of mystical secret and that whatever it represented had the power to grant a long life:
1st July
Those that bear the markings appear to be older than those without and several seem to be of a very great age indeed. I have counted the growth ridges on the exoskeleton of a particular individual and calculated it to be at least a hundred and fifty years old.
He started concentrating his efforts on one colony that inhabited a large abandoned rabbit warren about a mile from his house:
All of the marked specimens I have collected came from the vicinity of this nest so I conclude that the answer to the mystery will be found there.
I have started digging on the south-facing bank. It is hard work and I could use some help but I’ll be damned if I shall share this discovery with even the lowliest labourer.
Tooth went on to describe how the sprites would periodically attempt to mount an attack, swarming him and stinging any exposed skin until he was forced to cover up completely and wear a beekeeper’s hat as he dug. But even this didn’t appear to deter them:
4th July
I have been stung by the spiteful little beasts one too many times, and have lost all sympathy for, and patience with them. Tomorrow I will go to town and purchase some ferrets with which to drive them from their burrows. Then I can continue to excavate without risk of being constantly stung.
5th July
The ferret plan worked as well as I could have wished. After securing nets across every hole I could locate I sent down the two animals who were eager and hungry. Almost immediately the sprites started to flee and were trapped: I netted a dozen good specimens of varying ages. Unfortunately I seem to have missed a hole on the northern side of the warren and soon witnessed a mass exodus of perhaps a hundred individuals who flew in a swarm away across the moor to the north-west. A breakaway group must have doubled back, however, and I was stung severely several times on the buttocks as I tried to coax the ferrets back out.
Once they were gone I lost no time and began to dig.
The entrance tunnels are extraordinarily deep and only after two hours’ solid work did I come across a first ‘room’. A small dugout containing nothing but a pile of acorn cups. A stockroom perhaps? There are no oaks on the moor so they must have been gathered from far afield, perhaps used for bowls or drinking vessels. I progressed another couple of feet downwards before the tunnel started to level out to horizontal. It started to get dark and though I was tempted to return to the house and get candles to work through the night, the wind was starting to pick up and the clouds threatened rain. I barricaded the hole securely before I left with stones and rubble to prevent the creatures returning to their home and stealing any of their possessions back.
A further three or four feet along the passageway I fancy it starts to open up into a
16
Destruction
For the next two days Asa spent most of his time in the greenhouse. The sprite eventually became less nervous and would venture out of the hutch and fly up to perch in the tomato vines from where it would watch him reading. But it never got closer than that and it never showed any interest in the food or water he had brought.
Benjamin Tooth, in his writing, was starting to show signs that he was quite as mad as the people of Mereton had suspected all those years ago.
He had become convinced that the tattoo the sprites wore on their chests held some sort of mystical secret and that whatever it represented had the power to grant a long life:
1st July
Those that bear the markings appear to be older than those without and several seem to be of a very great age indeed. I have counted the growth ridges on the exoskeleton of a particular individual and calculated it to be at least a hundred and fifty years old.
He started concentrating his efforts on one colony that inhabited a large abandoned rabbit warren about a mile from his house:
All of the marked specimens I have collected came from the vicinity of this nest so I conclude that the answer to the mystery will be found there.
I have started digging on the south-facing bank. It is hard work and I could use some help but I’ll be damned if I shall share this discovery with even the lowliest labourer.
Tooth went on to describe how the sprites would periodically attempt to mount an attack, swarming him and stinging any exposed skin until he was forced to cover up completely and wear a beekeeper’s hat as he dug. But even this didn’t appear to deter them:
4th July
I have been stung by the spiteful little beasts one too many times, and have lost all sympathy for, and patience with them. Tomorrow I will go to town and purchase some ferrets with which to drive them from their burrows. Then I can continue to excavate without risk of being constantly stung.
5th July
The ferret plan worked as well as I could have wished. After securing nets across every hole I could locate I sent down the two animals who were eager and hungry. Almost immediately the sprites started to flee and were trapped: I netted a dozen good specimens of varying ages. Unfortunately I seem to have missed a hole on the northern side of the warren and soon witnessed a mass exodus of perhaps a hundred individuals who flew in a swarm away across the moor to the north-west. A breakaway group must have doubled back, however, and I was stung severely several times on the buttocks as I tried to coax the ferrets back out.
Once they were gone I lost no time and began to dig.
The entrance tunnels are extraordinarily deep and only after two hours’ solid work did I come across a first ‘room’. A small dugout containing nothing but a pile of acorn cups. A stockroom perhaps? There are no oaks on the moor so they must have been gathered from far afield, perhaps used for bowls or drinking vessels. I progressed another couple of feet downwards before the tunnel started to level out to horizontal. It started to get dark and though I was tempted to return to the house and get candles to work through the night, the wind was starting to pick up and the clouds threatened rain. I barricaded the hole securely before I left with stones and rubble to prevent the creatures returning to their home and stealing any of their possessions back.
A further three or four feet along the passageway I fancy it starts to open up into a
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