Amanderella and the Mystery of the Moor Chap.8

Chapter 8.

 

The Village talks.

 

The kitchen was warm and bright, the sort of room that believed firmly in starting the day properly. Botswana was already at the stove, sleeves rolled up, hair pinned back, and porridge bubbling with the air of something that had been supervised since dawn.

“Sit yourself down,” she said, sliding a plate of toast across the table. “You can’t go out on the Moor looking like a stiff breeze might carry you off.”

Amanderella ate neatly, the steam from the tea curling around her like a friendly cat. Outside, the wind rattled the window latch, but inside everything was steady and sure.

“I think I will go and talk to the people in the village this morning,” said Amanderella when she had mopped up the last of her fried egg with the final piece of fried bread. “I shall speak to the Reverend Nonshine,” she said. “And to Mr Walloper. And then to Mr Filibert Panks.”

Botswana winced. “Filibert will talk your ears off, my dear. And none of it will be true.”

“That,” Amanderella replied, “is precisely why I must speak to him.”

St Mildred’s Church leaned slightly to the left, as though bowing politely to visitors. Amanderella found the Reverend Septimus Nonshine polishing a brass candlestick with the solemnity of a man performing a sacred duty.

He looked up, blinking owlishly behind his spectacles. “Lady Gottsnobbler! I presume? A pleasure. Do mind the draught; it comes in sideways.”

 “Reverend, may I ask whether you were truly quoted as saying the Moors have ‘spiritual resonance, particularly on Thursdays’?”

The vicar sighed. “Ah. Mr Wibberley. He asked whether the Moors were haunted. I said no. He asked whether they were cursed. I said no. He asked whether they were spiritually significant. I said everything is spiritually significant if one looks at it kindly. Then he asked about Thursdays, and I said that’s when I polish the lectern.”

Amanderella nodded. “And the lights on the Moor?”

“Will‑o’‑the‑wisps,” he said promptly. “Marsh gas. Perfectly natural. Quite pretty, if you don’t walk into a bog while admiring them. The schoolmaster explained them to us when they first appeared.”

“And disappearances?”

The vicar brightened. “Only two in living memory. One tourist fell down an old mine shaft, rescued with nothing worse than a sprained ankle and a strong opinion about signage. And Berman Cleghorn, of course.”

Amanderella paused. “Berman Cleghorn?”

“Went out on the Moor to escape his wife Maggie,” the vicar said. “Kept walking. Didn’t stop until he reached the next county. Came back years later to dance on her grave. Quite sprightly, if I remember correctly. A little unseemly, but understandable. She was a notoriously difficult woman.”

Amanderella made a neat note. “Thank you, Reverend. You have been most helpful.”

 “Do take care,” he said. “And if you see any lights, admire them from a distance. The villagers are quite convinced the Boggits are stirring again. They’ve heard peculiar noises on the Moor, whistles, thumps, that sort of thing. Nothing to alarm you, of course, but… well. Best not to go poking about after dark.”

The Cudwick Arms smelled of woodsmoke, beer, and something comforting bubbling in a pot. Roglan Walloper, a man built like a wardrobe, with cheeks the colour of windfall apples and a faint aroma of cider that seemed to follow him like a loyal dog, was busy polishing a glass.

He nodded at Amanderella. “Afternoon, my lady. Botswana said you’d be coming.”

 “Mr Walloper, did you tell the reporter that guests left early because of the Boggits on the Moor??”

Roglan snorted. “Boggits? Nonsense. They left because they scared themselves silly. Heard a bit of wind moaning in a gully and decided it was ghosts. Didn’t even finish their puddings.”

He shook his head at the memory. “And it was good pudding. Treacle. No one leaves treacle pudding unless they’re rattled.”

Amanderella smiled. “And the lights?”

“Marsh gas,” he said. “Happens every year when the weather turns. Pretty blue flickers. Tourists love them until someone says the word ‘haunted’, and then suddenly they’re packing their bags.”

“And the disappearances?”

“Mine shaft,” Roglan said. “And Berman Cleghorn, who wasn’t lost at all. Just avoiding Maggie. Can’t blame him. He sniffed. “That reporter just sat in the Bar with Old Filbert and drank pints of my best cider. After  a couple of glasses of that you’d believe anything. The man never went anywhere near the Moor.” Roglan grinned. “In fact, I had to pour him into bed at closing time.”

Amanderella closed her notebook. “Then the rumours began with Mr Filibert Panks.”

Roglan gave a long, meaningful sigh. “Buy Filibert a pint and he’ll tell you the Moors are full of ghostly armies, buried treasure, and a giant sheep with glowing eyes. He told Wibberley all three, I reckon. Always goes on about the spirits in the mines. Well, I can tell you, Filbert ain’t never been down  a mine in his life. They were all closed up long before he was born.”

Amanderella thanked him and turned to leave.

“Mind yourself with Filibert,” Roglan called after her. “He’s harmless, but his stories aren’t.”

Amanderella found Old Filibert Panks exactly where Roglan Walloper said he would be: in the corner of the Cudwick Arms, occupying his usual chair, his usual tankard, and his usual air of being ready, indeed eager, to tell a story to anyone who wandered too close.

He brightened the moment he saw her. “Ah! Lady Gottsnobbler! Come to hear the truth about the Boggits, have you?”

Amanderella sat opposite him with polite composure. “I have come to hear what you told Mr Wibberley.”

Filibert puffed out his chest. “Told him everything I know. Which is considerable.”

Roglan, polishing a glass behind the bar, muttered, “Considerable nonsense.”

Filibert ignored him. “Now then, the Boggits, fearsome creatures, they are. Live down in the mines. Nasty, dark places, mines. Full of tunnels and echoes and things that scuttle.”

Amanderella opened her notebook. “You have been in the mines yourself?”

Filibert looked offended. “Good heavens, no! They shut the mines before I was born. Dangerous places. Wouldn’t catch me down there.”

Amanderella paused. “Then how do you know about the Boggits?”

Filibert leaned forward conspiratorially. “My uncle’s cousin’s neighbour once heard a man say he’d seen one.”

Roglan snorted. “That ‘man’ was you, Filibert, and you were talking to your reflection in the window.”

Filibert waved this away. “Details, details. The point is, the Boggits live underground. Everyone knows that.”

Amanderella made a neat note: Filibert has never been in a mine. Source: hearsay of hearsay.

Filibert continued, warming to his theme. “They knock on the walls, see. Tap‑tap‑tap. That’s how they talk to each other. And sometimes they moan. Terrible sound. Like a cow with indigestion.”

Amanderella said, “I heard a moaning sound today. It was the wind passing over a hollow.”

Filibert blinked. “Was it? Well… yes, that too. The wind does a bit of moaning. But the Boggits moan louder.”

“And the lights on the Moor?” Amanderella asked.

“Ah!” Filibert slapped the table triumphantly. “Ghost lanterns! Spirits of the miners, wandering about looking for their lost lunch pails.”

Roglan called across the room, “Marsh gas, Filibert. You know it’s marsh gas. You set your trousers on fire with it once.”

Filibert coughed. “A minor incident.

Roglan muttered, “And that’s how we ended up with half the county thinking the Moors are haunted.”

Filibert looked faintly guilty. “I may have… embroidered things a little.”

Amanderella stood. “Thank you, Mr Panks. You have been most illuminating.”

Filibert brightened again. “Any time, my lady! If you want to hear about the giant sheep with glowing eyes—”

“No, thank you,” Amanderella said firmly.

She stepped out into the afternoon light with a clearer picture than ever: the rumours were nothing more than wind, marsh gas, and Old Filibert’s enthusiasm for a free drink.

By the time Amanderella reached the edge of the village, the light had begun to soften, turning the cottages the colour of old honey. The wind carried the faint smell of heather and something colder beneath it, a reminder that the Moors were never entirely at rest.

She walked the last stretch to Lollingfolly House with steady steps, her notebook tucked safely under her arm. The garden gate clicked behind her, and the warm glow of the kitchen windows shone out like a welcome.

Botswana looked up from the stove as Amanderella stepped inside, cheeks pink from the breeze.
“You’re back!” she said, relief and curiosity wrestling for space on her face. “Well? Did the village talk?”

Amanderella removed her gloves and hung up her coat. “It talked,” she said. “But it did not agree with itself.”

Botswana tutted. “That’s villages for you. Sit yourself down. I’ll pour you a cup of tea. You look as though you’ve had a day of it.”

Amanderella sat at the scrubbed table, the warmth of the room settling around her like a quilt. Outside, the first shadows of evening stretched across the garden, and somewhere far off on the Moor, a low, uncertain sound drifted on the wind.

She made a mental note to listen again later, very carefully.