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'Elm's will drop their branches without warning,. ' said Mr Farlow, shaking his head when he heard the news. 'I did warn the boy not to climb.'

But Joseph's father decided to take vengeance on the tree he blamed for his son's death and demanded that Mr Farlow find someone who would cut the tree down. The old man shook his head.

'Not I, sir,.' he said. 'And if I were you, I'd leave the tree be.'

There was something in the way the old man said the words that seemed to end the discussion and no tree surgeon was ever phoned. Instead, it was estate agents who were contacted and the house was put on the market once more.

They moved before the house was sold. Joseph's mother could not sleep there. The rustling of the great tree played on her nerves. Mr Farlow was kept on by them to maintain the grounds until a buyer was found.

At the very top of the tree, light would occasionally twinkle as it played across the dented back of a watch embedded in the highest reaches of its ancient trunk.

'More tea, Edgar?' said my uncle, lurching forward rather alarmingly.

'Yes, please,.' I said.

My throat did feel somewhat dry. I was finding it difficult to shake off the thought of being trapped at the top of that great tree with some nameless horror climbing inexorably closer and closer. My imagination had been horribly effective in its rendering of those murderous claws.

Uncle Montague refilled my cup and his own. He placed his saucer on his knee with one hand and lifted the cup to his lips with the other. When he had taken a sip, he put the cup and saucer back on the tray and got to his feet.

'Perhaps I should not be telling you such tales, Edgar,.' he said, walking to the window and peering out. 'I do not wish to give you nightmares.'

'That is quite all right, Uncle,.' I said. 'I promise you, I was not so very frightened.'

'Really?' said Uncle Montague, turning round with a crooked grin. 'My tale was not frightening enough for you?'

'No, Uncle,.' I said, putting my cup down with a rattle. 'That is to say, I mean . . .'

'Calm yourself, Edgar,.' said Uncle Montague, turning back to the window. 'I was teasing you a little. Forgive me.'

'Of course,.' I said with a smile. 'I realise that.'

Uncle Montague chuckled to himself but said nothing more. He seemed lost in a kind of reverie, gazing out through the windows to the garden.

I looked about me. The dancing fire flames were producing a not especially pleasant illusion of animation among the objects around the room and the shadows they cast. The shadow under my uncle's chair seemed particularly to have a life of its own and gave the unsettling impression that something was squatting beneath it, twitching and ready to dash out like a great spider across the room.

Though I knew, of course, that it could not be, the framed prints and paintings, the objects on the mantelpiece and on the cabinets, the books and the furniture - they all seemed to be trembling in anticipation, as if alive.

Uncle Montague turned and picked something up from the top of a cabinet nearby. The 'movement' of the contents of the study seemed to come to a sudden halt. When he turned back to face me I could just make out it was a tiny doll with a china head and fabric body.

My uncle walked over and handed me the doll with a degree of seriousness utterly at odds with the object, although I could see that it was made with unusual care. Still, it seemed an odd sort of thing for my uncle to have in his house. I felt a little foolish holding it and thought of the ribbing I would get at school should anyone there have seen me.

'Have you ever been to a seance, Edgar?' asked my uncle - a seemingly wild divergence from the doll he had so gravely placed in my hands. He sat slowly down in his chair.

'No, sir,.' I replied.

'But you are aware of such things?'

'Yes, sir,.' I said. 'People try to contact their departed loved ones. There are, I believe, those who claim to be able to allow spirits to speak through