Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestley [30]
'Who's there?' she said.
Simon held his breath. Old Mother Tallow edged out of the door, cocking her head to one side with the effort of listening. Her eyes seemed to glow like cat's eyes.
Then it occurred to Simon that perhaps the old woman did this every time she left the house, merely as a precaution, and that it was a coincidence that he was there. She was an old blind woman living on her own. It made sense to check that everything was all right before she left the house.
After all, how could she have heard him from inside? In any case, she seemed satisfied there was no one there and began to busy herself at one of the apple trees. When she snipped through a twig, birds took flight once again - wood pigeons this time - noisily wheeling overhead.
The old woman had left the door open and Simon saw his chance. The grass was long and he found that he could move in silence. His route to the door took him horribly near the glass-eyed old woman, but she seemed oblivious to him as she squeezed the secateurs in her bony hands and cut through another twig. The blades flashed in the sunlight and slipped through the flesh of the wood with a loud SNIP and there was something hideous about the relish Old Mother Tallow seemed to take in this cutting. Simon turned away and walked on.
As he walked through the front door he was filled with relief at having eluded the old lady, but this feeling was immediately replaced by one of mounting unease.
He was now in a small house whose layout he did not know. What if the old woman came back inside? What if she tried to attack him? He thought of the secateurs and their flashing blades. What if she was as mad as everybody said?
Simon shocked himself with the matter-of-fact way he picked up the walking stick, but he reassured himself that hitting the old woman would be a last resort. A weapon made him feel more relaxed and he began to look around.
What Simon saw was a disappointment. If Old Mother Tallow was rich, she did not seem to spend her money. The furniture was old and threadbare. A layer of dust and cobwebs covered everything in sight.
The cottage may have looked like a fairy-tale witch's house from the outside, but inside it was mundanely shabby. There was a smell of damp and though a fire burnt in the lounge grate, it seemed colder inside than out. Simon could see his own breath and rubbed his hands together to get some warmth back to his fingers.
He looked around the tiny rooms downstairs with a growing sense that he was unlikely to find anything of value. He lifted cushions from chairs and looked in vases and under ornaments, but there was no sign of any cash or valuables. The kitchen was equally disappointing.
He crept upstairs. He had heard about old ladies stashing money under their mattresses, but not Old Mother Tallow. A search under her sagging mattress unearthed nothing but a hairgrip and two dead woodlice.
Wardrobes, chests of drawers and linen baskets all failed to deliver any riches. Even a promising-looking jewellery box held only a tinny-looking old brooch. Simon caught sight of himself in the dressing-table mirror as he rooted through the old woman's things and a tiny pang of guilt troubled him for a second, but he shook it off with a smile.
Simon crept downstairs again and was about to leave when he noticed in the little hall by the door there was a strange wooden box on a low polished table. It startled him and made him look about and listen for Old Mother Tallow, because he was sure it had not been there before. But when he peeked through a window, the old lady was standing in the same patch in the garden, snipping away at the tree.
The box was made of a reddish wood and seemed to be the only thing in the house not covered in a layer of dust, as if the old woman polished it every time she walked past.
Simon picked it up. It was warm to the touch. There was a carving on the lid, a carving of the front of the house he was in with the lawn and the apple trees. He noticed that when the box was carved