Just as he began to grow alarmed—had something happened to Sophy?—the door opened. He began to smile; it was immediate on seeing Miss Landon and he couldn’t help it. But the smile faded when he realised it was not Sophy at the door.
An old, old woman stood there instead, stooped over with age. Her brittle white hair all but obscured her wrinkled face, and her clothes were ragged and dirty.
‘I… I am looking for Miss Landon,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Is she here?’
Gripped with a sudden alarm, he cast a long look about himself at the other houses, then back at the one before him. ‘This is the parsonage, is it not?’
The woman cackled—actually cackled, the way old women tended to do in stories—and opened the door wider. ‘Yes, and yes,’ she said. Her voice did not match her appearance; instead
