Free The Windvale Sprites by Mackenzie Crook Page A

move, darting into bushes and up into the trees, zipping through Asa’s legs and circling above him.
    He wheeled his bike out of the back gate and around to the street. At the first sound of a car the sprite was straight in the backpack and remained there until he was well away from busy roads and human habitation. But as soon as the roads turned into lanes and the town became fields and countryside it emerged again.
    The sprite seemed fascinated by Asa’s bicycle, hovering close by and watching the wheels spin, marvelling at the unlikely contraption. Sometimes it flew on ahead and other times it stayed close by. Occasionally it would perch on his shoulder and he could feel the breeze of its wings beating next to his ear. Various times when the road meandered off course the sprite would fly off across a field and be waiting for him on the other side.
    He knows the way, thought Asa, so why does he even need me to come? But then whenever a potential danger showed itself, a passing tractor or a large bird overhead, the sprite would seek the safety of the bag and stay there until the danger had passed.
    *
     
    When eventually they came to the moor and Asa could take his bike no further, he laid it on the ground and stood for a while to catch his breath.
     
    ‘There you go.’ He gestured to the wide expanse of waving grasses. ‘Home.’
    The sprite hung in the air in front of him.
    ‘You’re home,’ repeated Asa. ‘This is where I found you, I don’t know exactly where you came from.’
    The tiny creature darted away for several feet but then stopped and turned again to face him.
    ‘What?’ Asa asked. ‘I don’t understand.’
    The sprite flew in close and hovered right in front of his face.
    Come .
    The word hung in his head as if it had been placed there. Asa knew he was supposed to follow.
    The sprite then started leading him down the grassy slope and across the moor. Sometimes it was ahead, sometimes behind like a sheepdog shepherding its herd.
    But it soon dawned on Asa that they were heading towards Benjamin Tooth’s broken-down house and he hesitated. He remembered the macabre scenes of dereliction and decay and did not want the sprite to see Tooth’s instruments of torture.
    ‘No, wait,’ he called out to the sprite who was quite a way ahead. ‘Why are we going there?’
    He was suddenly aware of a movement to his left and, looking down, he saw another sprite in the grass peering at them. Then a whispering rustle made him look behind and there were three more, and then another, and soon the tiny creatures were all around. They rose up on shimmering wings from the sea of grass and hung there, watching.
    Looking back, the sprite was waiting for him. It had a plan and so he followed.
    When they got to the house the creature’s mood changed. It no longer led him but hung back and seemed to be urging him on. The sprite could have entered the house through any one of the broken windowpanes or holes in the roof but for the first time it seemed to want to stay close to Asa and be protected by him.
    He picked his way over the ramshackle remains of the garden and towards the outhouse where he had entered before. The sprite grew more nervous as they approached and clung on to the back of his head, peering through his hair. As he stepped over the rusty junk the sprite gripped his head tightly.
    ‘Are you sure?’ asked Asa.
    Go on , said the words in his head and so he continued into the dark interior.
    Once inside they stopped and the sprite, little by little, started to look about the room.
    It was cloudier today than when Asa had visited before and only the ghostly outlines of furniture could be made out by the dim light that came through the grimy windowpanes.
    ‘I don’t have my torch,’ said Asa. The sprite settled on the thick stub of a candle, folded its wings around, and, with a sharp, rasping, scratching sound, leapt back as the ancient wick flared up and settled into a steady flame. Asa took up the