Bedtime story
Midnight. A twig snaps with a crack, as deep in the darkness, a blue light follows the fox that slips through the copse.
High above, the moon glistens.
Stop. And listen.
A ringing, like the sound made by a wetted finger tracing the rim of a wine glass, is singing through the trees. It fills the frost pocket and resonates through the thicket, while in the distance there comes a crackle that spreads in spidery slow motion, onwards and outwards, then forward and away.
The encroaching cold unrolls its frozen tidings, despatching icy formations. They span out, travelling across the ground and along each and every branch until the copse is transformed, covered in a coating of hoary crystals. The master of sublimation is on his way, causing moisture to turn from vapour to ice in an instant as he passes.
The fox stops in her tracks and glances back. The blue light follows. So she runs out from the wood into the open field, moonlight white on her thick warm coat.
An owl calls. The night sky dances. And everything below is held as though in a trance as the frost follows the fox from the scrub-filled hollow across the field to where countryside meets the first cluster of houses at the edge of a village.
Rime forms along fences in scaley outcrops as the wind whips in from the west. The fox ducks under and wanders on. Through gardens, thick with scents of cat, dog and small birds; sweet smelling windfalls that lie forgotten at the base of a gnarly apple tree. The sickly scent of decay stops her in her tracks. She looks up at the tree. It sleeps; waiting to be woken with wassail and gun shot.
But why wait for the revellers? For tatter-clad morris dancers, bedecked with pheasant feathers and bells, all stick-clattering and prancing? Why wait for a king and a queen proclaimed by pea and by bean?
The frost has reached the spot. The fox barks: three sharp calls that split the frozen air as loudly as any firearm. And, as the sound continues to ricochet through the frozen air, a figure, tall and somewhat spiky, with slender fingers that end in spiny tips, can be glimpsed at the centre of a halo of glacial blue that darts about the tree.
Among the houses, two trespassers now: one canine, deftly navigating steps, decking and terrace, where scraps left out for the birds are morsels to savour. The other, otherworldly, the stuff of imaginations and children’s stories, loiters nearby, where parked cars and houses present a gallery of glass panes to decorate.
With fingers outstretched, etched feathers begin to unfurl, turning to flamboyant arabesques and elaborate ferns. Elsewhere, scrolls scratched in white upon white curl across the glassy canvasses. Plumes embellish windscreens and a chain reaction of florid patterns trespasses the glass top of a patio table.
And then, just as the first glint of early morning sunlight hits the upstairs window of a neighbouring house, the fox turns to the figure of frost. It’s time to go. Their fun is done.
Helen Duncan is a writer and jewellery maker based in Oxford, who creates hand-crafted pieces under the name Silver Nutmeg. Her work is inspired by the countryside and wildlife around her house, and her Simple Thing is lighting the woodburner when the evenings turn cold.