I left his house and went down towards the post office, a small, rectangular building, which had a large bay window with several panes on the front. The frame and the doorposts were painted black, and above the door, the words “POST OFFICE” were read in tiny white letters. I found the post office wedged in between the local pub and a house.

I opened the post office door and was immediately greeted by Mrs Bakersfield, a little old woman who looked as though the very bones in her might crack.

“Morning, dear!” she said. “Or is it the afternoon? I’m sorry, I get so confused.”

I walked forward and opened the hinge and went behind the desk. Mr Jones would come in on his bicycle, and we would hand him post. Occasionally, customers would come in and ask us for stamps, and we were all-too-happy to oblige them. We gave away so many stamps that we didn’t have anymore. Thus I was asked to replenish the supply.

After that day was over, I went home. On the way to Clarence’s cottage, I went past the woods. It was evening, and the moon was in its waxing crescent. There was no sound except the howling winds. They blew around my raincoat and I felt cold. It was admittedly a parky evening, and so I felt on the point of death. Not that this was unusual to me. On the Andersen Estate, we couldn’t afford central heating, and so our flat was cold on occasion. For days, I’d had to dress up warmly in a coat. The winters were the worst. They were so cold that steam vapour even came out of our mouths, even when we were indoors.

I looked at the forest. In the distance, I could seem some form of light, and hear the faint beating of a drum. It was a very slow rhythm, ominous and effective. I could only hear some mumbling. That was all I heard, but then, all of a sudden, a ghostly scream tore through the woods, shaking the trees with its blast. I jumped back, in terror. I clutched at my chest, as though I would die of a heart attack right this second. My heart was beating incredibly fast. Vapour came out of my mouth again, just as it used to do. I crept back, turned and fled all the way to Clarence’s cottage, where I ran to my room and buried myself under the covers.

What I saw that night – or rather, what I heard – terrified me. It was like nothing I had heard before, even after seeing all those fights outside the pubs of Stratford when I took my morning constitutionals to school. That unearthly scream was just the sort that I couldn’t believe I’d just heard. There was something about that forest. I immediately began to believe that what the villagers in the local village had told me was true. There was definitely some sort of dark secret that they were hiding – that much was obvious – but what it was I just didn’t feel like finding out. One thing was for sure, and that was that it was something that would make Count Dracula quiver. It was horrible to think about – just horrible! – and I feel just as sick describing it as I felt when I first witnessed it.

The following morning, I felt sick to my stomach. I went to the toilet and vomited again. That shriek of pain still echoed in my head as I cleaned my mouth with tissue before flushing both it and my vomit down the loo. I went out in the morning and wandered around. It was during my climb that I came across the library. The library was a small building, rectangular, with a sloping roof with slates on it. It was made of brick, and there was a crack in the wall beside the door. A sign outside advertised that it was the library. I went forward, but found Elder Simonson walking up to meet me.

“What are you doing here, boy?” he snapped.

I nervously explained the situation and expressed a desire to look inside the library for anything that might prove interesting. Elder Simonson raised his cane towards me and pointed it at my Adam’s apple. It felt extremely uncomfortable – the touch of the cane was cold against my throat, and I couldn’t do anything else but swallow and swallow hard. What did he plan to do with the cane? I knew he was trying to threaten me in some way. Did he intend to beat me to death on the spot for questioning his word? I swallowed again. Elder Simonson stared at me again, this time menacingly, suffocating me in a horrid smell of bad breath.

“That library is for official residents of the village only,” he growled. “Nobody else is allowed to set foot in it. Understand?”

“But why? I mean there’s a library back home in Stratford, and they let everyone else use it.”

Elder Simonson evidently began to look increasingly agitated. “Now listen here, boy,” he said. “Knowledge is a dangerous occupation. There are some things that should be left well enough alone, if you understand me. So stay away from that library, and focus on the tasks we set for you.” He lowered his cane and placed its end on the ground.

“As it stands,” he said, “I need you back at the house, and it was by sheer chance that I was able to find you here.”

I asked him whether the Council of Elders lived in the same house, and he scoffed, told me not to be stupid and confirmed that he and the other Elders lived in separate houses. I slowly followed him right to the top of the village, where I was met with a house that was fairly humble for someone who occupied the joint role of chief. Oh, yes it was a very large house, with an elaborate Tudor design to it and it spanned two buildings, but it wasn’t the palatial mansion that I was expecting. Elder Simonson led me through a brown door into a hall with brown planks on the floor, walls painted sickly-yellow, and with a hatstand on the side of the wall closest to the staircase. The whole building definitely had a sort of look to it, like it was a product of Tudor England, although I could swear that it was much more recently built. Elder Simonson went into the living room and informed me that my task for today was to make him some tea. I went into the kitchen, which was rather grand, and made him some tea.

What it was with these villagers and their tea, I’d never know, I suppose it was the image they wanted to create and certain things like that. He also had a kettle that looked as though it had been made thirty years ago. When I was making tea, I heard a strange voice in my head. It sounded like an unearthly cackle, and then I found myself thinking back to the scream. Ah! That scream! How can I even begin to describe it? It sounded like the screeching howls you sometimes associate with ghosts, that feeling that makes you know that they are coming for you in the night in the darkness of their manors. Although I’d never encountered ghosts, and probably never would – ghosts being nonexistent – I couldn’t help but feel sick at what I’d been witnessing.

I finished making Elder Simonson his tea and went into the living room. The living room had an old-fashioned paned window, and wooden planks, tapestries, and others, but it also appeared to have, of all things, a television. Elder Simonson graciously received my offering to him. He was sitting at a sofa, browsing some documents. I made a cursory glance over his shoulder to find that most of them were difficult to read. They definitely had some kind of legality about them, as though they were binding contracts of some sort. I decided that now was not the time to look. I went into the hallway and found a curious painting near the entrance to the kitchen. It was done in a style I couldn’t quite place. This was the first time I’d encountered Oriental paintings – the Andersen Estate had absolutely nothing like that kind of class.

This painting was definitely interesting to behold. It depicted a woman, with a weird haircut, dressed in a long lightly-coloured robe and a ridiculous headdress. How I failed to notice it before I don’t know, but now it was drawing me in. The haircut was the strangest part of it: it was braids, that much was certain, but rather than falling down the side of her head, as braids usually tend to be, they were piled on top of her head, and somehow they were heaped up on top of her head like a beehive. The headdress was somewhat ridiculous, since it consisted of a wooden beam with various jewels falling from it on long chains. In the background of the painting was, strangely enough, the crescent moon. I had absolutely no idea who this woman was or what to expect from her. Directly beneath this painting was a small railing on four wooden legs, with a candle lit beneath it, much like you’d find in a church.