text: It’s a funny thing, was you to look at me now, you’d see an old man, dried out by age; lined and scored. The kind of person to stare intently into the depths of the glowing hearth. The kind of man to shy away from grasping shadow. These aren’t uncommon traits among the agèd, however most come to this state of irrational, superstitious fear by way of a long life, and failing mind; and it is just that, which sets me apart, unlike my peers, I know to the day --and perhaps to the very moment-- that I changed. So, here follows the story of just how I lost that handsome sense of youthful immortality. &nbsp; It’s no complex story, more of a puzzle: the solution of which had eluded me for countless years, each more fleeting than the last. Now, conjure into your mind --if possible-- the heath hills of Shropshire, around March, rocky, yew lined meadows dotted with sheep, I was walking down a long cart lane locally known as “Frogs Gutter”. To my right as I walked rose a long line of poldered trees, and to my left stretched the aforementioned countryside, broken only by small knots of bare trees, or the occasional spinney of fir. The sun was failing towards the gloaming and I was returning to my friends house (where I had wintered) after a long walk around the Bog and up through the Stiperstones and past old Devil’s Chair. I recall it had been an uncommon good day, crisp and cool. My only regret as I returned for my dinner was that I had neglected to take my camera along with me; the chair had looked wonderful that morning, all covered in frost that glistered and glinted in the pale morning light. But I digress. I was less than half way down the Gutter when it began to rain, as it had threatened to do all day. I cursed myself for having forgotten my umbrella and hurried my pace. Before I reached the lane’s end the rain had shifted into a forbidding and potentially deadly hail, and I was obliged to find some cover. The trees which should have shaded Frogs Gutter had recently been cut back, and so were of no use to me and I was forced into a field where I had spied a lonely linden tree, bare boughed, but with the expected broad spread, enough for shelter, thought I. I jumped the dry stone wall and with all the speed I could muster I charged through the knee high grass. &nbsp; The tree left nothing to be desired in terms of shelter, though It was a wasted effort on my part, almost as soon as I had come under the eaves of the grand and solitary tree, the hail had shifted back into rain. I considered returning back to the road, but for my life, I couldn’t. There was something about that field that had drawn me in, something more than the hail. I considered for a moment, and wondered then why I had chosen this particular tree, from where I stood I could see several more suitable shelters on the other side of the road, and I had even passed a small cottage no great time ago. I looked around the field. I saw that on all sides (there were five) besides the one I had entered by, it was hedged in by yew. Not uncommon, or particularly strange, what did strike me was that there were no gates; just tall hedges and the wall, which was, I now saw, much higher on this side. I wandered around the border, looking for signs of an overgrown fence-gate, but I found nothing, I investigated the earth. Now, I can’t pretend that I know a great deal about farming, but the grass was green, and more tall in places than seemed at all right. I was completely lost as to why this plot of land perhaps less than an acre all told should have been so abandoned, no crops grown here, no animals set to graze. The only thing of significance here --so far as I could see-- was the tree in the centre, which seemed to have grown in my mind since I had entered the field. &nbsp; I returned to the wall, it was from the inside about as tall as I was, and only on my tiptoes could I see over the top and into the lane. The sun was sinking fast. I never was the most agile, and I had no intention of ruining my good tweed, so I decided that, before I would throw myself at the wall, I should take a look around. I returned to the linden its branches creaking ominously as I approached. Surprisingly enough there were few branches strewn on the ground about, in fact, there were none. I looked up, and saw that there were none hanging limp or loose, an odd thing in a tree of this size I thought. There was one thing in its limbs that caught my attention, the only thing of note in the tree was a ragged knot of rotting rope in one of the higher limbs. At first I believed it the remains of an old swing, but the more I reasoned the more I knew that it wasn’t. At the time I wasn’t a man easily frightened, nor was I a man taken by fancy, but even so, I had no desire to spend the night under a hangman’s lime. I made quickly for the old wall, but before I had taken a half dozen paces I fell, my foot caught in a root, I couldn’t see through the darkening light and the wretched grass, so I was left fumbling blindly hoping against hope to find the clasping root. Something in the earth cut me then, a nasty gash on my little finger, something that only added to my growing fear, and want for home. Again I applied myself to the root, finding it with my good hand and pulling with all the strength I could muster. I unearthed it, and found then that it wasn’t indeed a root, but a bone. Logically I should have thrown the thing away, and run for all the fear it put in me, but I couldn’t. I frantically patted the earth, searching for anything it might be attached to --though I really couldn’t say what possessed me to-- and just as the sun sank behind the hills, abandoning me to the last vestiges of lingering light I found it: a very nearly skeletal hand, I ought have been repulsed, but I wasn’t. The hand was clenched shut. I opened it. Between the leather-clad, boney fingers was a stone, black as the night, flecked with silver, smooth; and in the center was a symbol or rune, one that despite my best efforts I’ve never seen since. It was in gold, shaped like a heraldic lozenge with a diagonal strike passing through it and underlined by a “zig-zag” shape with eleven high points and twelve low, that was the sign. On the reverse was a series of rough marks, almost like a talley, but they were too small and too many for me to ever count with success. Against my better judgement I took the stone, placed it in my pocket and made for the wall. A sharp wind gusted through the field, and the sound it made as it played through the top of the Devil’s Lindon can only be likened to a dusty creaking laughter. I mounted the wall, and looked back one last time, and there where the limbs had been bare and empty I now saw countless limp and lank shadows, swinging and twisting in the breeze. I couldn’t bear to look, so I closed fast my eyes and turned back to the lane, never again daring to look back on that field. &nbsp; It has been over forty years since I took the stone, and in all that time it has never once left my person for more than a few minutes. But that’s not all: I have never been rid of the shadows, from the corner of my eye, in the reflections of glass’ I see their hanged forms. To begin I believed that it was the stone keeping them away, a sort of magical ward, preventing them from closing in on me and finishing me off. But recently I have come to believe that maybe they want it back. For the first time since, I have returned to Ratlinghope, I have etched my talley on the back of the stone and tomorrow, in the morning I will return it. The stone will be claimed or I will. If ever you pass down Frogs Gutter, look for the linden tree, but never approach it. Who knows, you may even see me there.