Cotswold Gothic

Cotswold Gothic

i. The moon’s a fingernail off full — was brass when rising, polished pewter now; the wind-blown cirrostratus tatters greyly past its face, like streaks of tarnish, fleeting.

The shrieks and hoots of tawny owls reach frenzied climax, then subside; a brown hare pauses by the field edge, seems to check the moon, then fades into the hedgerow gloom.

ii. The lane that ran down to the bridge was shadowed by a bank on either side, the moonlight silver-blue along a narrow central ribbon, jagged with the shadows of the winter trees.

Halfway to the bridge we came upon an adder, flattened by the traffic of the day; we paused beside it, and were feather-kissed by swooping whiteness searching for a meal.

Closer to the bridge, the blackness at the verges – neutral, friendly even, when we’d started off – grew colder, more forbidding.

Even now the bridge was indistinct, the overhanging trees and crowding undergrowth subsumed it in a dark, undifferentiated mass. We edged a little nearer to each other.

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Is it the bridge that moved, or someone – something – on it? We’re not sure, but carry onward: one step, then another, then... Before we get there, though, we turn and stride away (a little quicker than our normal pace, perhaps — by no means running, definitely not),

and postpone the bridge

till morning, and the sun.

iii. From the wainscot, sibilant and yet subdued, malicious whispering, intent conveyed by tone alone — the odd distorted syllable is recognisably linguistic.

Not the central heating cooling; not the wind — the night is still. Perhaps it’s rodents of some kind, a-patter in their secret passageways; perhaps it’s just the rustling of rats. Oh Lord, let it be rats!

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