Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestley [31]
It was a curious thing. The scene was at once crudely rendered and amazingly realistic. As he moved it in his hand, the light played across the polished surface and gave the strange sensation of movement, as if Old Mother Tallow's movements in the garden were being mirrored in the wooden box.
Simon opened it up and whistled silently to himself. The box was packed with crisp £1 notes. They looked brand new, as if they had never been touched. So it was true. The old witch really did have a secret hoard. Simon grinned wolfishly.
He took the money out and stuffed it into the inside pockets of his coat and zipped it up again. He replaced the box and began to leave. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a movement in the carving on the box.
Simon walked out of the house and was comforted to see that Old Mother Tallow was still at work on the trees. He smiled and set off for the garden wall, gently patting the bundles of notes inside his coat.
But he hadn't taken two steps across the lawn when a blinding flash lit up the garden as if a huge but soundless firework had been detonated next to him. The world went white and he felt himself pass out.
When he came round he was still in Old Mother Tallow's garden. He seemed to have woken up on his feet, but whatever had knocked him out had done something to his vision. He could see, but in a different way from before. He had a panic that he had been horribly hurt somehow. He could not feel or move his face.
He wanted to run, but when he tried to move he found that he could not. It was as if he were rooted to the spot. In fact, not only could Simon not move his feet, he seemed unable to move any part of his body. He could look out across the lawn towards where he had been sitting earlier, and he was dimly aware that there were branches to the left and right of him. He seemed to be tied to one of the apple trees.
Simon was cold too. The chill breeze seemed to go straight through him. Had the crazed old woman stripped him? What had she done to him? What was going on? He wanted to struggle but was unable to move at all.
He was aware of a bird landing on one of the branches nearby, but felt it as though it had landed on his bare forearm. He could feel with excruciating sensitivity the prick of its tiny claws as it edged along, then hopped and scurried to the end of the branch. He felt the grip of its feet as though on his own fingers, flexing and squeezing as it shifted its weight before flying off as Old Mother Tallow appeared.
It was then that Simon realised the truth of what had happened, though his mind struggled to accept it. He was not tied to an apple tree. He was an apple tree.
'Now then,.' said Old Mother Tallow, opening and closing the curved blades of the secateurs with one hand and feeling along his arm-branch to his finger-twigs with the other. 'I think we will need to do a lot of work on you. A lot of work.'
Simon let out a scream - a long and painful scream that only the birds could hear - and a flock of startled finches took flight, flapping wildly above the old woman, the cottage and the five gnarled apple trees.
I realised when Uncle Montague had finished his story that I had been sitting on my hands as if to protect them in my imagination from those vicious secateurs of Old Mother Tallow. When I took them out from under my thighs I had lost all feeling in them.
I shook them and wiggled the fingers and Uncle Montague smiled, pouring us both another cup of tea. I wondered aloud if the fog was still as thick as it had been and my uncle said that I should go to the window and take a look.
I was amazed to see, when I pulled back the curtain, that the view was now utterly blank - as if the whole world had been erased and my uncle's house floated in a void. It was an unpleasant and strangely dizzying sensation and I quickly closed the curtain to shut it out.
As my uncle jabbed