Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestley [0]
MONTAGUE'S
TALES
OF
TERROR
UNCLE
MONTAGUE'S
TALES
OF
TERROR
CHRIS PRIESTLEY
ILLUSTRATED BY DAVID ROBERTS
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin and New York
First published in Great Britain 2007
Text copyright © Chris Priestley 2007
Illustrations copyright © David Roberts 2007
This electronic edition published 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978-1-408-80651-7
www.bloomsbury.com/chrispriestley
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For Sally
CONTENTS
1. THROUGH THE WOODS
2. CLIMB NOT
3. THE UN-DOOR
4. THE DEMON BENCH END
5. OFFERINGS
6. WINTER PRUNING
7. THE GILT FRAME
8. JINN
9. A GHOST STORY
10. THE PATH
11. UNCLE MONTAGUE
The way to Uncle Montague's house lay through a small wood. The path coiled between the trees like a snake hiding in a thicket, and though the path was not long and the wood not at all large, that part of the journey always seemed to take far longer than I would ever have thought it could.
It had become a habit of mine to visit my uncle during the school holidays. I was an only child and my parents were not comfortable around children. My father tried his best, putting his hand on my shoulder and pointing various things out to me, but when he had run out of things to point at, he was overcome with a kind of sullen melancholy and left the house to go shooting alone for hours. My mother was of a nervous disposition and seemed unable to relax in my company, leaping to her feet with a small cry whenever I moved, cleaning and polishing everything I touched or sat upon.
'He's an odd fish,.' said my father one day at breakfast.
'Who is?' said my mother.
'Uncle Montague,.' he replied.
'Yes,.' she agreed. 'Very odd. What do you and he do all afternoon when you visit him, Edgar?'
'He tells me stories,.' I said.
'Good Lord,.' said my father. 'Stories, eh? I heard a story once.'
'Yes, Father?' I said expectantly. My father frowned and looked at his plate.
'No,.' he said. 'It's gone.'
'Never mind, darling,.' said my mother. 'I'm sure it was marvellous.'
'Oh, it was,.' he said. 'It really was.' He chuckled to himself. 'Marvellous, yes.'
Uncle Montague lived in a house nearby. He was not strictly speaking my uncle, rather some kind of great-uncle, but as an argument had broken out between my parents about exactly how many 'greats' there should be, in the end I thought it best to simply call him 'Uncle'.
I have no recollection of ever visiting him when the trees of the wood between our houses were in leaf. All my memories of walking through that wood are when it was cold with frost or snow and the only leaves I ever saw were dead and rotting on the ground.
At the far side of the wood there was a kissing gate: one of the kind that lets only one person through at a time while ensuring that the gate cannot be left open and allow sheep to escape. I cannot think why the wood or the paddock it bordered had such a gate, for I never did see any creatures whatever in that field or anywhere at all on my uncle's property. Well, none that you could call livestock at any rate.
I never liked the kissing gate. It had a devilishly strong