“Barghest?” Heather took a sip of her tea. It had an unpleasantly grassy flavor. “What’s that?”

“It’s a word for a phantom dog,” said Bert. “You get versions of the legend all over the country. Black Shuck, Gyrtrash, Padfoot. Demonic hounds. Very popular bit of British folklore, that. Blazing eyes and slathering jaws.” He chuckled warmly.

Heather felt another tingle of unease, thinking of her mother’s suicide note: monsters in the wood. The old man was poking through the leaflets again, apparently intent on finding something. Despite the tea, she felt cold, and she realized that she didn’t like Bert. She didn’t like him at all, yet she couldn’t have said why. He nodded as he found what he was after, and passed Nikki a photograph. It showed a dense wood in spring, full of golden early morning light and dusted with bluebells.

“It’s beautiful,” said Nikki. Bert nodded seriously.

“These woods—the Fiddler’s Woods, which you would have walked through a small section of to get to my house—are ancient woods. Did you know that?”

“Aren’t all woods pretty old?” said Heather.

“Oh no,” Bert leaned back in his chair, his hands on the tops of his legs and his elbows pointing out, as though he were about to give them a painful estimate on an MOT. He sucked air in through his yellow teeth and shook his head. “Oh no. Trees were planted, you see, forests have been planned. But ancient woodland has been here a very long time. Longer than many of us have been here.” He shot a quick look at Nikki, and Heather stiffened, but he didn’t elaborate. “Ancient woodlands are forests that existed before 1600. If they were around before 1600, then it’s likely no one planted them—that they grew here, naturally. That they have always been a part of the landscape.” He leaned forward and tapped the photo with a slightly overlong fingernail. “Bluebells are often a sign that the wood is an ancient one. Wood anemone, primroses, too. We have them all in Fiddler’s Wood.” He said it with obvious pride, and Heather fought down an urge to ask if he’d planted the woods in his youth—he looked old enough, after all.

“Where was this taken? Is it nearby?”

Nikki had picked up another photograph. This one was of a cold-looking beach, the sky a flat gray and the sea a steely band flecked with white foam. There was a rugged romance to the scene, and an odd building sat off to one side. Heather took it from her friend to get a closer look.

“Ah,” Bert raised his eyebrows. “It is, it is. Beyond Fiddler’s Wood, if you go far enough.”

“And what’s this?” Heather tapped the building. It was a tall structure of warm brownish stone, marked here and there with narrow leaded windows. It stood alone, a tower on the edge of the land.

“Fiddler’s Folly, they call it round here. The family up at the big house was responsible for it, and there were lots of rumors about it, what it was for, why they built it.” He grinned, looking at them with his head tipped to one side. “But no one knows, not really. It’s standing empty now.”