Free The Grimswell Curse by Sam Siciliano Page A

protruding from the smooth turf—were at one with the landscape, so much so that the man-raised menhir seemed a brother to the natural tors atop the hills. One set of smaller stones formed a circle, jagged teeth making the O of a giant, frozen mouth.
    The air was wonderful after the stink of London, but to call something so rich, dank and heavy “fresh” would be a misnomer. Decay was predominant, the smell of all that decomposing plant matter, fallen leaves from the small patches of forest or from the brown and shriveled outer layers of ferns. The smell reminded me of wine, some vintage Burgundy or Bordeaux with a dark, smoky taste. The cold wind had a bite, the dampness making it cut through wool to touch the skin.
    We had followed the worn ruts of a dirt road up the slope away from the village. Once we reached the summit and descended, all sight of the village or the modern works of man were gone. The road rose and fell, skirted a small wood of alder, their leaves yellow, the ferns thick underneath with an occasional dense growth of whortleberry bushes with shriveled blue fruit, then the road rose and fell again.
    We came to a small stream, its icy rushing waters flowing over glossy brown stones. The driver brought the horses to a halt. “Best jump down, gents, and cross afoot. It’ll be a rough ride o’r the bridge in the back there.”
    Holmes and I stepped down and saw before us one of the so-called clapper bridges, made of slabs of granite resting on supporting stone piles. Since the slabs were nearly a foot thick, the effect was like that of a step, and there were two such steps up, then two down. Holmes tapped at the granite with the steel ferrule of his stick. He wore a suit of heavy gray tweed, brown boots with thick soles, and a black hat with a narrow brim. The air had brought some color to his cheeks, and he looked better than he had in weeks. The carriage jounced and swayed as its wheels went up over the first step.
    “Walking is definitely preferable,” Holmes said as we strolled along the bridge behind the carriage. Beneath us the clear icy water swept loudly downstream on its long voyage to the distant sea. “Look there, Henry.” A gray shimmery shape swept by and vanished under the bridge.
    “Good heavens, that looked to be an enormous fish.”
    “Perhaps it was a pike. There are salmon in these streams, too.”
    “Salmon—here?”
    “Yes. I have seen them swimming upstream to spawn in the torrents of early summer. A memorable sight.”
    The wind over the water felt very cold, and I restrained a shiver. My jacket was a thick wool, but not so heavy as Holmes’s. The sun had sunk low in the sky, a muted yellow circle behind a bank of gray clouds, and the blue patches of sky seemed to be shrinking. One particularly billowy patch of clouds seemed to be swirling in from the east so fast you could see them move.
    I pulled out my watch. “It will be dark in another hour. I should not like to be out here under a cloudy sky at night.”
    “That is when another hunter, the owl, replaces our friend up there.” Holmes pointed with his stick. High above a bird soared, its immense brown wings spread straight out.
    “Some sort of hawk?”
    “The common buzzard, one of the largest of the aerial predators.”
    “Buzzard seems a humdrum name for so magnificent a bird.”
    “It is, especially as the Americans refer to a species of scavenging vultures as buzzards. Our buzzard up there is a cousin to the eagles, another of the lords of the air.”
    The buzzard suddenly circled about, dropping downward, its wings opening up as it vanished behind the stand of alders.
    “No doubt he has found his supper,” Holmes said. “Probably a vole or hare if he is lucky.”
    “Poor creature,” I murmured.
    “You are being maudlin, Henry. One could argue that falling prey to so magnificent a bird is a better end than most. It is quick and relatively painless. It is a vole’s fate to end up in the stomach of some