"Well, I have to say that's the most cuckoo idea I've ever heard..." Jim Burrows breathed sharply as he finished listening
to the Witch in the grubby poncho. "...You mean to suggest that Madge goes up there where that demented killer is and
put herself in danger because she happened to come from the same village as him?" he asked with a tone of sarcasm.
Peggy Powler peered over to where the Sergeant's superior was gazing out of the window at the wakening morning and
wondered if he'd go for her scheme or just send Burrows down to the station to fetch some blue-coated back-up. "Aye,
Ah' knaw it sounds daft" the necromancer murmured and gently squeezed the shoulder of the woman in question.
The brutal murderer upstairs in the attic was now at his weakest and after Marjorie Burrows' revelation that she'd spent
her early life on the outskirts of Weathercote, Peggy had finally released the truth about what drove the man who killed
those he believed were fallen women. Just as she finished her chronicle of The Cold Caller, a muffled voice above them
said something indistinguishable and the soft-toned sorceress' small audience looked up at the ceiling. "That's the other
one speaking" Jim's wife whispered without emotion and the house was silent once more.
.................................................................
"It begins with a friendless boy distorting what he saw during his ambles through the woodland around Weathercote..."
Jasper Windle heard the laughter first and then the stewards of the mirth came into view as he parted a breach in the
tall harebells he'd been laying in. Back on the other side of the village, Martin and Charlotte Windle were cleaning out
the hog-pen after one of the sows had come down with a rash around her mouth. Jasper was never one for such tasks,
a failing his Pa had whupped him for many times and along with the thrashings, a fine reason to keep away from the
small cabin beside a body of water known to the locals as Pasher's pond.
A little girl giggled and the wiry lad prone among the nodding cobalt-washed flowers dragged his wandering thoughts
back to the children messing about with the chickens in the yard of their home. For some, it was a refreshing scene
where any other ten-summers-old boy may have got to his feet, walked over and joined in their game of hen-tag, but
Jasper had been informed he was made of different stuff and besides, he had already found a friend to play with.
"Heed your thoughts, the bumpkins yonder are beneath you..." the Nixiehob reported softly from behind the leaf
-heavy oak tree near to where Jasper lay. "...The amusement you truly seek awaits within these woods". Smiling
at the familiar indifferent resonance, the boy scrambled backwards from his concealment and hunkered down until
he reached where he believed his invisible consort was waiting...
With wide eyes displaying their concentration of the tale, the Last Witch of Underhill spoke of cruelty among the
shadows of that woodland. An educator of wickedness and a willing pupil to perform his despicable lessons from
an evil spirit that despised humans for their dominating position on the land.
Madge squinted during the Witch's telling as she vaguely recalled overhearing her father once telling her mother as
she fed the poultry to keep an eye on the children, something about finding dead animals in the woods strangely
arranged in unnatural patterns. However, what her satchel-carrying guest disclosed next, ensured her fear for the
thing upstairs would transform into something that would certainly distract the Sergeant's spouse from her current
discomfort.
...Jasper's secret world had grown darker as he'd grown older and when his aging mother had proposed that her only
offspring should browse a book a wandering priest had given her, a late-night conversation with his elusive tutor of
the forest brought the conclusion that would change Jasper's life forever.
That winter was a bad one in Weathercote and just beyond the freezing treeline where snow banked up against the
giant roots of the Nixiehob's haunt, a young man with the vacant look in his eyes agreed with his unearthly hidden
ally that his father's dalliance with a woman called Lillian should draw to a close. The glittering blanket of whiteness
advertised Jasper's passage back to the shanty he once called home and with a frenzy only the Nixiehob would ever
appreciate, the young man drowned his parents in the frozen pond nearby
After the horrendous act, it was the hidden voice beyond the snow-bound bushes who commended the shivering
and weeping last of the Windle household. "Be naught of sorrow, for your kith wandered from the old ways and
wallowing in the new religion, it would only be a short jaunt to an abandoned mater and a boasting debaucher..."
the cunning Nixiehob consoled its anguished surrogate.
Numb in body and spirit, Jasper had then followed the forest fiend's advice to leave the run-down home in a manner
contrasting of parricide. As a blizzard blew around Weathercote and lanterns glowed in the windows of those who
still cleaved to cherishing their loved-ones, a woebegone shape in the biting squall shovelled dirt over the sodden
frost-kissed bodies of his only kin and absently tossing the religious book onto the waterlogged breast of his frigid
mother, buried the last of his selfdom in the same grave.
It was only when the exhausted young man slumped to the mud-smeared snow and begin to weep again, did the
foul Nixiehob make its move and embed his ethereal talons into the shoulder of its victim.
Right there, The Cold Caller was born and the long season of killing began.
.................................................................
"So yer' see, Marjorie..." Peggy continued after allowing a short pregnant pause to exist after her story, "...there's
a destiny that brought the bugger upstairs te' yer' door and Ah' think yer've a part yet te' play in it". Inspector George
Abernethy breathed in deeply as he ruminated on what the little Witch had said and felt all his prudence wobble
in the realm of betwixt and between. Being with Amos Chambers' daughter would surely be a better place to be
right now he thought and waited for what would happen next.
to the Witch in the grubby poncho. "...You mean to suggest that Madge goes up there where that demented killer is and
put herself in danger because she happened to come from the same village as him?" he asked with a tone of sarcasm.
Peggy Powler peered over to where the Sergeant's superior was gazing out of the window at the wakening morning and
wondered if he'd go for her scheme or just send Burrows down to the station to fetch some blue-coated back-up. "Aye,
Ah' knaw it sounds daft" the necromancer murmured and gently squeezed the shoulder of the woman in question.
The brutal murderer upstairs in the attic was now at his weakest and after Marjorie Burrows' revelation that she'd spent
her early life on the outskirts of Weathercote, Peggy had finally released the truth about what drove the man who killed
those he believed were fallen women. Just as she finished her chronicle of The Cold Caller, a muffled voice above them
said something indistinguishable and the soft-toned sorceress' small audience looked up at the ceiling. "That's the other
one speaking" Jim's wife whispered without emotion and the house was silent once more.
.................................................................
"It begins with a friendless boy distorting what he saw during his ambles through the woodland around Weathercote..."
Jasper Windle heard the laughter first and then the stewards of the mirth came into view as he parted a breach in the
tall harebells he'd been laying in. Back on the other side of the village, Martin and Charlotte Windle were cleaning out
the hog-pen after one of the sows had come down with a rash around her mouth. Jasper was never one for such tasks,
a failing his Pa had whupped him for many times and along with the thrashings, a fine reason to keep away from the
small cabin beside a body of water known to the locals as Pasher's pond.
A little girl giggled and the wiry lad prone among the nodding cobalt-washed flowers dragged his wandering thoughts
back to the children messing about with the chickens in the yard of their home. For some, it was a refreshing scene
where any other ten-summers-old boy may have got to his feet, walked over and joined in their game of hen-tag, but
Jasper had been informed he was made of different stuff and besides, he had already found a friend to play with.
"Heed your thoughts, the bumpkins yonder are beneath you..." the Nixiehob reported softly from behind the leaf
-heavy oak tree near to where Jasper lay. "...The amusement you truly seek awaits within these woods". Smiling
at the familiar indifferent resonance, the boy scrambled backwards from his concealment and hunkered down until
he reached where he believed his invisible consort was waiting...
With wide eyes displaying their concentration of the tale, the Last Witch of Underhill spoke of cruelty among the
shadows of that woodland. An educator of wickedness and a willing pupil to perform his despicable lessons from
an evil spirit that despised humans for their dominating position on the land.
Madge squinted during the Witch's telling as she vaguely recalled overhearing her father once telling her mother as
she fed the poultry to keep an eye on the children, something about finding dead animals in the woods strangely
arranged in unnatural patterns. However, what her satchel-carrying guest disclosed next, ensured her fear for the
thing upstairs would transform into something that would certainly distract the Sergeant's spouse from her current
discomfort.
...Jasper's secret world had grown darker as he'd grown older and when his aging mother had proposed that her only
offspring should browse a book a wandering priest had given her, a late-night conversation with his elusive tutor of
the forest brought the conclusion that would change Jasper's life forever.
That winter was a bad one in Weathercote and just beyond the freezing treeline where snow banked up against the
giant roots of the Nixiehob's haunt, a young man with the vacant look in his eyes agreed with his unearthly hidden
ally that his father's dalliance with a woman called Lillian should draw to a close. The glittering blanket of whiteness
advertised Jasper's passage back to the shanty he once called home and with a frenzy only the Nixiehob would ever
appreciate, the young man drowned his parents in the frozen pond nearby
After the horrendous act, it was the hidden voice beyond the snow-bound bushes who commended the shivering
and weeping last of the Windle household. "Be naught of sorrow, for your kith wandered from the old ways and
wallowing in the new religion, it would only be a short jaunt to an abandoned mater and a boasting debaucher..."
the cunning Nixiehob consoled its anguished surrogate.
Numb in body and spirit, Jasper had then followed the forest fiend's advice to leave the run-down home in a manner
contrasting of parricide. As a blizzard blew around Weathercote and lanterns glowed in the windows of those who
still cleaved to cherishing their loved-ones, a woebegone shape in the biting squall shovelled dirt over the sodden
frost-kissed bodies of his only kin and absently tossing the religious book onto the waterlogged breast of his frigid
mother, buried the last of his selfdom in the same grave.
It was only when the exhausted young man slumped to the mud-smeared snow and begin to weep again, did the
foul Nixiehob make its move and embed his ethereal talons into the shoulder of its victim.
Right there, The Cold Caller was born and the long season of killing began.
.................................................................
"So yer' see, Marjorie..." Peggy continued after allowing a short pregnant pause to exist after her story, "...there's
a destiny that brought the bugger upstairs te' yer' door and Ah' think yer've a part yet te' play in it". Inspector George
Abernethy breathed in deeply as he ruminated on what the little Witch had said and felt all his prudence wobble
in the realm of betwixt and between. Being with Amos Chambers' daughter would surely be a better place to be
right now he thought and waited for what would happen next.
Read The TV Guide, yer' don't need a TV.