An Endangered Species
Is buying a house in the country with no strings attached really too much to ask?
Author: K. S. Dearsley
K. S. Dearsley’s writing career began as a freelance feature writer for the local press, businesses and organisations. Now a prize-winning playwright and short story writer, her work has appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic.
Narrator: Eddie Knight
Eddie Knight has been a technical leader in organizations ranging from financial services to software security, enabling him to gain the wealth of experience and insight that he brings as a speaker, author, and strategist.
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The scream made Duncan cower with his hands over his ears. It seemed almost human, like a child. A shriek of pain and outrage. Duncan stood back and inspected his work. The tree had toppled waving its branches at an even crazier angle. Duncan wiped sweat off his forehead. The twisted old apple tree had had more life in it than he had suspected. The ax had gnawed through the last stringy threads of the trunk instead of biting cleanly.
“That’s one job done!” He dried his palms ready to take the ax to the fallen branches, which squeaked and creaked as if pleading for mercy. Duncan was feeling better already. Clearing away the one eyesore on his new domain should dislodge the dust from
his brain and help him fill the waiting computer with ideas for the new habitat preservation campaign. Duncan set to once more. When he straightened he found Bert, the village sage, as weathered as the garden wall, watching him with arms folded.
“See you chooped dain the owld apple, thun?”
Duncan took a moment to decipher his accent. “That’s right.” He stood aside to give Bert a better view.
“Thort you were woon of these cornservaition chappies–save the rainfoorests, and sooch like.”
“I am, but… "
Bert scratched his head. “Wal, I sooppose you knoo whort yoo’re abait.” He strolled off, still scratching his head.
Duncan began stacking the rubbish, but his satisfaction had turned bitter in his mouth.
“It’s only one old apple tree,” he told himself.
He looked around the rest of the garden. Pillows of crocuses were being overtaken by golden spearheads of budding daffodils. All this belonged to him–a snug cottage and a vibrant garden that looked as if they were a greeting card come to life. He could still hardly believe it. When he had told the previous owner, Mrs. Grey, that he could not scrape together the asking price, he had expected her to dismiss him. Instead, she had brushed the fluffy grey hair that had escaped its slide out of her eyes and stared at him. “You don’t keep cats, do you?”
“No. No pets, not even a goldfish.”
“Good! We don’t like cats.” She had narrowed her eyes as if trying to guess his weight, allowing Duncan time to speculate who ‘we’ were. “All right, you can have it.” Duncan wiped his forehead. Time to soak off the grime in the bath, and then try to make some headway on the campaign.
After so much activity Duncan tumbled into bed early. He woke suddenly from a dream full of the sound of chain saws and the crash of falling forests. He looked at the clock and groaned. It was hours until daylight.
“Serves me right for going to bed so early.” Duncan had not intended speaking aloud, but could almost swear he heard an echo: “serves… right”.
A drink would help him sleep. As he swung his legs out of bed, something scrabbled on the carpet. Beetles? Spiders? He clicked on the light: nothing. “Hah! Scared you!”
“Didn’t!” The floorboards protested under Duncan’s weight.
He padded downstairs to the kitchen, yawning as he took a bottle of milk from the fridge and poured a glass. Before it met his lips his face pinched with disgust. Sour! Not yet curdled, but tainted.
“Damn! That shouldn’t have happened!” He felt the bottle. It was cold. The light flickered as if a moth had flitted in front of it. Duncan spun. Again nothing. Perhaps the electrics were playing up, although Mrs. Grey had assured him everything had been checked. Maybe her willingness to drop the price for the place was not so eccentric after all. As if to confirm his fears, as Duncan turned off his bedside light once more there was a small sizzle of sound. Reassuring himself with a promise to get it checked the next day, Duncan settled into the blankets.
When he awoke the next morning, he hauled himself listlessly into the bathroom. He put a hand to his forehead, then on his throat as he swallowed. His skin felt as if someone had brushed it with sandpaper and he discovered small aches as he moved, but apart from hair like a startled coconut, Duncan looked no worse than usual. At the foot of the stairs he paused. He could hear tinny voices. He pressed his hands on his ears then released them. He checked the radio, then the television. Both were switched off. He picked up the telephone, but the soporific purr of the dialing tone was uninterrupted. Shaking his head to clear it, Duncan walked through to the kitchen once more. As he opened a cupboard door, a jar crashed to the floor. Honey and glass oozed into a sticky mosaic. “So much for breakfast.”
The way the day was going, Duncan decided not to risk switching on his computer. Instead, he called an electrician and strolled into the garden to wait for him. Outside, the tinny sound evaporated and Duncan breathed away his growing irritation. Then he noticed the daffodils. The javelin sharp edges of the leaves were bordered with brown as if a frost had pinched them. The day deteriorated from irritating to downright worrying. Duncan’s vision began to play tricks on him, making him think that something kept moving just out of sight. The one bright point was when the electrician gave the cottage’s wiring the all-clear. The tinny sound of radio interference returned as soon as he had gone. #
“Mice!” Duncan slapped the desk. “Why didn’t I think of it before?”
Suddenly it all fitted. The strange noises, the odd accidents, the unpleasant odors–all the things Duncan had begun to think were symptoms of a degenerative disease could be put down to rodents. He laughed, and pushed back his chair. Looking out at the garden his
smile faded. All the daffodils and narcissi had turned papery and the base of their stems were going slimy and limp. He sauntered outside. The light was fading to a pink twilight, but it did not make the garden look better. All the flowers were drooping and depressed. Duncan sighed as he saw Bert approaching. Seeing Duncan there, he stopped and leaned on the wall.
“Evening.”
“Evening,” Duncan replied.
“Raick’n yoo’ve got a bit of trooble thur.”
“I don’t seem to have Mrs. Grey’s magic touch.”
“Thort yoo’d be haiving a bit of trooble.”
“Oh?” Duncan joined Bert at the wall. “You know what’s wrong?”
“Raick’n yoo’ve gort furry blight.”
“Furry blight?” Duncan frowned.
“Nort ‘furry blight’, furry blight. Caurzed by furries.”
“Mice, you mean.”
“Mice?” Bert straightened, a glint in his eye. “I doon’t haive time to stand hur and be maid fun of by yoo.” He stumped off.
“And I thought I was going mad,” Duncan muttered after him.
“Never mind, Duncan, at least you can do something about mice.” He consoled himself over a whisky and soda in the sitting room. “What shall it be? Traps or poison?” He gulped down the whisky and poured another, hearing again Bert’s “thort yoo wur woon of those cornservaition chappies.”
“Mice are not an endangered species,” Duncan told himself. “Cats!” He sat as if electrified.
Mrs. Grey had said: “We don’t like cats.”
“Cunning old crone!” Duncan said admiringly. That settled it: mice it was, whatever Bert might say.
Something flitted across his field of vision. Two large whiskies and Bert’s cryptic comments had shortened Duncan’s temper. He snatched up the soda syphon and blasted the insect with a stream of water. It fell with a thud. If it was a moth, it was a big one. Duncan
upended his empty glass over it. There was a tinny buzzing. Duncan looked closer. It definitely had wings–and hair. It also had legs, but only two, and two fists, which it was shaking at him in unmistakable fury. Duncan removed the glass and the tinny sound immediately became a small voice shouting ornate obscenities.
“Look what you’ve done to my dress! Homewrecker! May all your branches wither and your roots get weevils! You’re no better than a scaly bug, you… you… " Without thinking Duncan reached to pick her up. Immediately there was a hum of wings around his head and Duncan felt his scalp prickle.
“Ow!” He snatched his hand to his head, trying to swat away the swarm of angry creatures that darted around him while others helped their bedraggled comrade flit out of sight. Then they were gone.
Duncan stared at the empty space where they had been. Fairies! The place was infested with them. He refilled his whisky glass. He could forget about mousetraps. Cats? Duncan shuddered and put his hand to his cheek as if it had been raked with claws. He could not kill them. There came a scurrying of small feet and a crash from the kitchen. Somehow, they had to go. Bert must know what to do. Duncan shook his head. He would only ask as a last resort. Perhaps he should put pepper down everywhere. If they sneezed enough they might find life more pleasant elsewhere. What was it they wanted? He thought back to when he had first entered the cottage. It had been neat and polished. No sign of any fairies then. Except for Mrs. Grey’s royal ‘we’. She had obviously known about them and equally obviously was untroubled by them.
“Come on, Duncan, you’re an environmentalist. What does any species want?” He ticked off life’s necessities on his fingers–food, somewhere to live…. He looked out at the garden. Of course!
By the time Duncan had finished, the sun was dropping towards twilight. He sat back on his haunches, wiping soil off his hands. Now he would see. The sapling shivered in the breeze of the cooling day. Behind the sound of its leaves he thought he heard whispering.
He spoke quietly. “Well, here it is. I know it’s small, but it’s a quick growing, hardy variety. It’s the best I can do.”
Duncan could not be sure, but he thought he saw something flit in the new branches. “How was I to know you lived in the old tree?”
This time he was certain he heard whispering. He waited. The first stars began to appear. It was almost a shame to go indoors, but the sound of tinny music drew him to the house. The dirty dishes he had left in the sink now sparkled on the draining-board, and there was a smell of flowers. Duncan’s smile grew. No more furry blight–only furry blessings.