The last boy to vanish, from the village of Monte Rosa itself, had been seen on the day of his disappearance in the company of the de Walters' housekeeper, Maria. A police search of the Villa Monte Rosa and its grounds resulted in the discovery not only of the boy's corpse "hideously mutilated", according to the article, but the remains of over a dozen other children. Most of these had been found "at the bottom of a disused well in the grounds".
The de Walters, said the article, had "been unable to throw any light on these horrific discoveries", but were still helping the authorities with their investigations.
Some weeks later I confessed to my mother that I had read the article. Her only comment was that I had had a lucky escape, but I am not sure if she was right. The de Walters would not have touched me, and Hal, whom I had met by the well, had not been one of the boys who were killed because they were all Portuguese. Hal, you see, had been English like me and not a Portugoose.
I am writing this now because I have been told to, by my wife and the others. Not that I have any complaint against her. We have been married for over twenty years. We have no children; that inestimable privilege had been denied us, and adoption would have been impossible. I could not have taken an alien being into my house. But we have plenty of occupation, my wife and I. We are great collectors; in fact, I am a dealer in antiques and am recognized as something of an expert on Lalique glass.
One afternoon, about three months ago — I think it was three months, it may have been two, or perhaps even less — we were in Bath. Naturally, we did our rounds of the antique shops. There is a little place in Circus Mews, not far from the Royal Crescent, which we often visit, rather shabbier than the rest; at least not tarted-up in some awful way. I won't say we pick up bargains there because the owner knows his stuff, but he has a way of discovering rare and unusual items that I find enviable.
It was a bright summer day, and shafts of sunlight were penetrating the windows of his normally rather gloomy establishment. That is how I believe I had a sense of what was ahead of me even before we opened the door to the shop.
As soon as I was inside, I saw it.
It was one of Mrs de Walter's glass cases of stuffed animals, the second one of the series I had called in my mind "The Rodent's Rake's Progress", and it was exactly as I had remembered it. In fact, it surprised me that it did not seem smaller to me, now that I was myself older and larger.
The scene, as you remember, is set outside the inn with the sign of the Skull and Trumpet. There were the brawling mice and rats in the foreground, and — yes! — the Puritan moles in steeple hats are peering out of a diamond-leaded casement on the first floor to the right of the inn sign. There are windows to the left, but these are not open. And yet — this is something I cannot remember seeing before — there is something behind those windows, and it is not another rodent.
It is the pale head-and-shoulders of a boy in a white flannel shirt, a boy no more than six inches high. I cannot see him too clearly through the little leaded panes of glass, but I think I know him.
I swear that the head moved and turned its black eyes upon me.
They tell me of course this is rubbish, and I want to believe them.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Witch's Headstone
There was a witch buried at the edge of the graveyard, it was common knowledge. Bod had been told to keep away from that corner of the world by Mrs Owens as far back as he could remember.
"Why?" he asked.
"T'aint healthy for a living body," said Mrs Owens. "There's damp down that end of things. It's practically a marsh. You'll catch your death."
Mr Owens himself was more evasive and less imaginative. "It's not a good place," was all he said.
The graveyard proper ended at the edge of the hill, beneath the old apple tree, with a fence of rust-brown iron railings, each topped with a small, rusting spear-head, but there was a wasteland beyond that, a mass of nettles and weeds, of brambles and autumnal rubbish, and Bod, who was a good boy, on the whole, and obedient, did not push between the railings, but he went down there and looked through. He knew he wasn't being told the whole story, and it irritated him.
Bod went back up the hill, to the abandoned church in the middle of the graveyard, and he waited until it got dark. As twilight edged from grey to purple there was a noise in the spire, like a fluttering of heavy velvet, and Silas left his resting-place in the belfry and clambered headfirst down the spire.
"What's in the far corner of the graveyard," asked Bod. "Past Harrison Westwood, Baker of this Parish, and his wives Marion and Joan?"
"Why do you ask?" said his guardian, brushing the dust from his black suit with ivory fingers.
Bod shrugged. "Just wondered."
"It's unconsecrated ground," said Silas. "Do you know what that means?"
"Not really," said Bod.
Silas walked across the path without disturbing a fallen leaf, and sat down on the stone bench, beside Bod. "There are those," he said, in his silken voice, "who believe that all land is sacred. That it is sacred before we come to it, and sacred after. But here, in your land, they bless the churches and the ground they set aside to bury people in, to make it holy. But they leave land unconsecrated beside the sacred ground, Potters Fields to bury the criminals and the suicides or those who were not of the faith."
"So the people buried in the ground on the other side of the fence are bad people?"
Silas raised one perfect eyebrow. "Mm? Oh, not at all. Let's see, it's been a while since I've been down that way. But I don't remember anyone particularly evil. Remember, in days gone by you could be hanged for stealing a shilling. And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence."
"They kill themselves, you mean?" said Bod. He was about eight years old, wide-eyed and inquisitive, and he was not stupid.
"Indeed."
"Does it work? Are they happier dead?"
Silas grinned so wide and sudden that he showed his fangs. "Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean."
"Sort of," said Bod.
Silas reached down and ruffled the boy's hair.
Bod said, "What about the witch?"
"Yes. Exactly," said Silas. "Suicides, criminals and witches. Those who died unshriven." He stood up, a midnight shadow in the twilight. "All this talking," he said, "and I have not even had my breakfast. While you will be late for lessons." In the twilight of the graveyard there was a silent implosion, a flutter of velvet darkness, and Silas was gone.
The moon had begun to rise by the time Bod reached Mr Pennyworth's mausoleum, and Thomes Pennyworth (HERE HE LYES IN THE CERTAINTY OF THE MOFT GLORIOUS REFUR-RECTION) was already waiting, and was not in the best of moods.
"You are late," he said.
"Sorry, Mr Pennyworth."
Pennyworth tutted. The previous week Mr Pennyworth had been teaching Bod about Elements and Humours, and Bod had kept forgetting which was which. He was expecting a test but instead Mr Pennyworth said, "I think it is time to spend a few days on practical matters. Time is passing, after all."
"Is it?" asked Bod.
"I am afraid so, young Master Owens. Now, how is your Fading?"