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By Root 515 0

moved to the village from the city and to the house that had been his mother's childhood home. Simon's grandfather - his mother's father - had died, leaving them the house and the hardware shop that went with it. Simon's own father had been killed fighting for his country in a far-off land when Simon was a baby and their life had not always been easy. His mother thought the move might give them both a new lease of life.

'Do you know anything about Old Mother Tallow?' said Simon as he and his mother ate lunch.

'Old Mother Tallow?' said Simon's mother with surprise.

'Yes,.' said Simon. 'The blind old bat up the hill.'

'Simon, really,.' said his mother. 'Up at the top of Friar's Lane, you mean? But she can't still be alive.

Why she must have been a hundred when I was a little girl. Mind you, she can't have been, because my mother could remember teasing her when she was a girl.' His mother stopped and stared into space. 'Wait a moment. That cannot be right, can it?'

'Well, there's an old lady there,.' said Simon. 'And she's blind and that's what everybody calls her.'

'Maybe it is a daughter,.' she said. 'How odd. They used to say she was a witch, you know.'

'They still do,.' said Simon with a grin.

'We were terrified of her,.' said his mother. 'We used to call her names and run off.' She shook her head at the memory of it and blushed a little. 'Poor woman. How horrible children can be.'

'Speak for yourself,.' said Simon, grabbing an apple from the bowl and taking a bite. 'Why were you so scared of her?'

'Because of her being a witch, of course,.' she said, laughing to herself. 'Honestly, the nonsense we used to come out with! They used to say she was immensely rich - though if she was, goodness knows why she was living alone in that tiny cottage - and that she captured children who came into her garden and ate them.'

'Ate them?' said Simon, chuckling.

'Yes,.' said his mother with a mock growl. 'Ate them or threw them down a well or something awful! We were terrified! You know, I can still see her standing in the front garden with those two creepy old apple trees beside her. They used to say that the apples were delicious, but how anyone knew I don't know, because they also said that once you took one step on to the lawn she flew at you like a crow and pecked out your heart.'

Simon laughed and his mother couldn't help but join in. 'I mean it,.' she said. 'I was very scared of her. The way she seemed to look through you with those awful eyes of hers.'

'But she's blind,.' said Simon.

'I know,.' said his mother with a shudder. 'It makes no sense, but there you are. I had nightmares about her.'

'There, there,.' said Simon. 'I'll protect you.'

'You won't go up there, will you?' she said.

'Scared I'm going to get pecked?'

'Of course not,.' she said, slapping him on the arm. 'But you won't, will you?'

'No, Mother,.' he said with a sigh. 'I won't. I promise.'

Simon was not quite the child his mother took him for, however, and this promise, like so many other promises he had made, meant little. Simon's ears had pricked up at the mention of the idea that the old lady might be rich. He was sick of stealing pennies from his mother's purse. He was tired of hearing how little money his father had left them.

The following day he walked up Friar's Lane once again. He raised himself up on to the wall and swung his legs over. He sat there looking at the cottage with its broken-backed roof and lichen-covered tiles, its tiny windows peeping out of climbing roses and honeysuckles, and the unkempt lawn with the gnarled, arthritic old apple trees, twisted and deformed by years of pruning.

Simon smiled when he thought of his mother and her nightmares about this twee old cottage and the crabby old crone who lived there. He stretched out a toe towards the lawn and rested his foot there. A blackbird suddenly fluttered past and he snatched his foot back.

Simon shook his head at his own childish jitters, took a deep breath and hopped down as silently as he could. As soon as his feet hit the grass, the old woman appeared at the garden