Chapter 1

Gallipot Cottage, in the village of Farstone, appeared at first glance to be uncared for and unloved. The windows were old-fashioned tiny-paned windows, each wooden surround in bad need of a coat of paint. The guttering was hanging off at one end and weeds were growing thickly along the narrow 17th-century bricks as they met the pavement. And Flora absolutely loved it on sight!

She had wished for character – and here she had it in spades. With not having a photo or even a Google street view as it was half-hidden around a corner, her thoughts had run wild and imagined a seventies big-windowed shop tacked onto a dark forbidding Victorian-looking cottage. Even though she knew it was decades older. Her imagination was a weird and wonderful thing.

Where other people would call it dilapidated, she would call it characterful. Where other people would see an ocean of work, she saw an opportunity to make it her own. The big window to the right, she supposed was the shop. It had a ‘Ye Olde Tucke Shoppe' vibe about it that she liked, never ‘minde' that a few of the ‘smalle' panes were cracked… It even had a couple of ‘Bull's Eye' panes too, which was an indication of its age.

She walked up to this window and peered in, hoping to see stray tins of Borthwick's Baking Powder, old packets of Lyon's tea and the odd jar of sticky barley sugar twists left there. Instead, she saw a few dead and desiccated spider bodies- one which could have been the original model for Aragog – and a few big, dusty moth corpses. She couldn't see anything else as yellowing newspaper was pinned against the glass. Not exactly showing reports of the Titanic disaster but hardly up to date either.

Flora stepped back for a better look at her new home, Gallipot Cottage. She had looked up the strange name and it was apparently a special earthenware pot that apothecaries and medical people used to put their creams and balms in. Which, when she thought about it, was absolutely perfect for her. She wondered what Great Aunt Sybil had used the shop for, before she became too old and had to give it up.

She wasn't her real great aunt, only an old friend of her parents as far as she could make out. After the initial interest that Flora had shown in the strangely dressed old person who visited when she was seven, neither she nor her mum and dad had mentioned her again. Which is why it was such a shock, her being left this place. Why would she do that? Flora supposed she had no one else to leave it to and, taking in the whole building now, she sent a promise to wherever Sybil had passed on to, that she would look after the place for her.

She checked her watch, the gold one that was her mother's, then turned to look around her. From here she could see down the village street to her right. There was a sign on the corner opposite her, pointing down there to Peverel Hall. She could also see the swinging sign of an old, low pub but nothing or no one else could be seen. Stepping to her right a little as she was tucked away in a corner at the edge of the village, she could now see the road she'd driven in on, set almost at right angles to the one she stood on.

This curved street was called High Street. It must have taxed the street planner's inventive processes to come up with that one. Although, peering closer, the street in front of her was High Street North and the one that curved to her right, was High Street East. Nowhere on either of these High Street combinations was an old woman, possibly on a Zimmer frame, to be seen. Not even a Hell's Granny on a souped-up mobility scooter, on course to run over her toes at 25 miles per hour. She had seen a couple of people on her way up, both middle-aged and not likely to be Sybil's best friend - the one she was supposed to be meeting fifteen minutes ago. The one who had the keys to the cottage. Why on earth hadn't the solicitor given Flora her address?

There was a noise somewhere to her left - down High Street North. It came from a small shop as a woman stepped out and closed the door behind her. Flora started to walk towards her expectantly but she got into a car and drove off.

If the shop was open, she could ask there if anyone knew of a Margaret Harker, Sybil Gardwicke's friend. She locked the door of the car that contained many of her worldly possessions and which she had pulled onto the convenient grass patch at the side of the cottage.

Opening the shop door, she saw rows and rows of wooden shelves. Oh, joy of joys, she thought, a bookshop! Mostly second-hand books by the look of it although there was a table nearby, promoting local authors. There were also a few small round tables, each with a couple of chairs, positioned in the window. At the furthest one sat an elderly woman, simultaneously drinking coffee and avidly reading a book held up in front of her. Flora didn't think she had noticed her come in. Possibly not Margaret?

A man was standing at a small wooden counter to the left of the author table. He had a plumpish, kind face with laughter lines around his eyes. His hair was a faded red and it stuck up on end as though he had run his hand through it.

‘Can I help you? You look a bit lost' he smiled.

‘I'm looking for someone but I'm delighted to have found a bookshop here' she smiled back. ‘I'm sure I'll be a regular visitor. I was supposed to meet this lady, a Margaret Harker?'

‘Margaret Ha–, Oh, Peggy? I haven't seen her around today but I'm sure Jen will be able to show you where she lives' he suddenly looked suspicious, ‘Are you a friend?'

‘I've never met her but she was a friend of my great aunt and I was supposed to be meeting her over fifteen minutes ago.'

‘That's okay then. She's quite a private person so…' He stuck his head through a doorway and shouted. ‘Jen, can you come down here a minute?'

There were light footsteps on the stairs and a woman in her thirties emerged. Her hair was nearly as dark as Flora's but was cut shorter, coming to just below her shoulders. It was pushed behind her ears to reveal huge, dangling gold earrings in a complicated knot pattern.

Flora was so fascinated by them that she didn't register the woman's abrupt halt and when she did, her eyebrows drew together in confusion. The woman was staring at her in what looked like horror – open-mouthed and wide-eyed – with all her features frozen in shock.

Flora tore her gaze away to send a mute appeal to the man who, with a worried frown, spoke to the woman.

‘Jen…?'

Flora turned towards the woman who was still frozen. Then suddenly and with an obvious effort, the woman turned and ran back up the stairs, leaving the man staring at Flora in embarrassment.

‘I'm sorry. I don't know– She never–' he collected himself together. ‘My name's Steve Cayley, Jen's husband.'

He put his head down as, he held his hand out, as though this fact wouldn't commend him to anyone at the moment.

‘I'll show you where Peggy lives?'

He moved towards the doorway and started to point further down High Street East, a couple of cottages past Flora's, when he stood up straight.

‘Oh, there she is.'

Flora leaned forward in the direction he now indicated and saw a woman standing outside Gallipot Cottage with her arms folded, looking for all the world as if she'd been waiting there for hours.

Flora lifted her eyes to heaven, gave her thanks to Steve and ran out of the shop.

‘I was here earlier' Why was she apologizing? ‘but I couldn't see anyone so I thought I'd go to the shop to ask.'

She finished this speech whilst Margaret – Peggy – regarded her calmly, not changing the expression in her open face. She continued to do this for what seemed like minutes and Flora was starting to feel very uncomfortable, like she was being dissected by secret laser beams shooting from Peggy's eyes. In fact, she was starting to feel uncomfortable – not just with the reactions of the two women this morning – but with the whole idea of moving to this village.

She had been so excited when she heard she had inherited the shop and cottage from her ‘Great Aunt' Sybil. She also felt guilty because if she had known of the bond that Sybil obviously felt with her, she would have made an effort to see her. She had been consigned to childhood memories and hadn't emerged until a couple of months ago. She had been in the process of selling her parent's house, both now sadly deceased, to get somewhere smaller without a mortgage. This had come at the perfect time as she could use the money, after she'd paid the old mortgage off, to do this place up.

She had always wanted to live in the country rather than the busy town she had been brought up in, especially here in Yorkshire which she had always felt an affinity with, so it was a dream come true. Or had been until everyone started behaving like she'd dropped into a dark folk story where the womenfolk sacrifice newcomers to the Green Man of the forest if they don't like the look of them. She glanced at her car and wondered how quickly she could sprint there.

‘I knew you must be here; your car is parked at the side.'

Peggy stated this laconically and with impeccable logic. Flora attempted a smile and received what might have been a smile in return. The corners of Peggy's mouth lifted slightly and her eyes crinkled a little more than they already were but she had one of those immobile faces that gave nothing away unless they wanted to. Flora wasn't sure she would manage to pick her out of a police line-up.

Yet somehow, the old woman seemed to give forth a quiet serenity which now put Flora at her ease. One thing which would make her stand out in a line-up was the halo of frizzy, white, curly hair which surrounded her face, incongruously topped off with an orange woolly hat.

‘Here's the keys' Peggy stated, bringing Flora out of her reverie. ‘Don't know as how you'll be able to stay in this place tonight. Hasn't been lived in for a few months. Let's have a look and see.'

Peggy put the keys in the younger woman's outstretched hand and walked slowly round to the right side of the cottage. Flora's car was parked in front of a high laurel hedge with a tall gate at the cottage end of it. It obscured the view behind it but just before that was a side door, wooden with paint flaking off. Peggy nodded towards it and Flora placed the key in the lock with a mixture of excitement and dread.