The Cutlers Of The Howling Hills

By Michael Summers

All is not well at the monastery.

A mysterious spoon shortage...

A missing toad...

And, worst of all, an epic poem.

What is the world coming to?
And has it been there before?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Summers
• Release date: Jun 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311326706

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The Cutlers of The Howling Hills

Michael Summers

A Tale of Cutlery, Toads and Epic Poetry

Published by Michael Summers at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Michael Summers

1st Ebook Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter 1 - A Page

A wilderness is a page. On this page there are hilltops, green and hunched over cold rock, arching up into the morning light. Rolling under the dawn sky, the hilltops hold a town, and in this town there are a thousand half-souls. Life is as hard as it is short, as short as the hobbled forms that tilt against the wind and brace out onto the rubble-cobbled streets. There is the steam of morning kettles, the mourning for another day, the first cigarette. And here, in the breakfast hours, life really starts to bite. People look out their windows and wonder what the weather may bring.

On the last page you will find out.

Chapter 2 - St. Collywobble's

Far away from the town, high upon the Howling Hills, the wind hit the walls of St. Collywobble's and rose to cry hag-like over the slates and chimneys of its rooftops. The monastery was built on the principle that bricks were like people: filigree was weakness and to be avoided at all costs. So each block was sturdy and precise, laid out in a simple rectangle and buttressed against the foul winds by sturdy limbs of sandstone.

In a cell, on a plain bed of bare wood, lay Bulkington. His was a slight, almost shrivelled form, hewn by early mornings and a spare diet into something reminiscent of a scarecrow. His clothes were large and empty-seeming, barely held together save for darning thread - a meagre defence against the elements. With cheeks that were hollow and a brow wrinkled in a pious way, he looked as though a natural intelligence had some time ago petered out in him; under his eyes there were bags full of weariness and his neck seemed to be losing a fight with gravity.

Bulkington's spiritual constitution, like that of the monastery, was built on simple and strong principles; he was, to the roots of his soul, a good man. Yet at this moment, as the sky rushed with the first whisper of dawn, Bulkington was feeling angry. Through the half-dark of the small, austere cell he looked across to the shelf above his reading desk, to the small, bulbous form that perched there with an air of grimness and solemnity. The first rays of the rising sun cut through the single window, which was aligned to catch the light of dawn. The sunlight hit the brickwork of the far wall and crept up, up over the skirting board, over the furrowed, damp-pitted stone, over the flocs of algae and moss, over the woodwork of the desk that stood short and stock against the wall, and over the illuminated, immaculate manuscript that was open on Bulkington's favourite chapter. And further up the wall the sunbeams crept, until they illuminated something less immaculate, something cobbled from nodules of slime and unctuous rolls of green flesh. As the sunlight hit this terrible creature, its eyes grew wide, swivelled around the room, and its mouth opened and closed.

Each cell had a toad. Bulkington stood up, walked over to the basin in the corner and washed. He looked out of the window for a moment, out across the valleys, to the distant sunrise. Then he pulled on his cassock and sat down at his desk. He stared at the text before him, eyes only half focused. It was always like this when he first went to read the texts. His mind was not sharp. And then, like clockwork, the Collywobbler Toad landed with a gelatinous flop onto the desk. Its neck pulsated and it crawled across to sit in front of Bulkington, eying the text. Then, deep down in its throat, it started to hum. The sound grew louder and louder, until it seemed that the walls pulsed with it. The familiar sickness grew in Bulkington's stomach, for the Collywobbler's chant was well known to induce the most unpleasant feeling of nausea in all who heard it. So it was that Bulkinton's eyes fell queasily upon the writing before him and thus began this and every day's reading. Bulkington loved to read.

At midday Bulkington filed along the shadow-pooled corridor to the refectory and sat silently at his place. To say that the refectory was crowded would be misleading; there were many monks in the refectory, all lined up in neat rows at long, wooden tables, but each sat alone in a pool of silence. At each place lay a bowl of gruel, filling the room with a smell like damp cardboard, and at each place there was a single, dull-metal spoon. At least that was how things should be. How they had been for the past thirty years. Only now, there was no spoon at Bulkington's place. He looked around helplessly, but the bell rang and those around him wordlessly conveyed the gruel to their mouths. Bulkington sat miserably, and when the bell rang again he was just as hungry as ever. He stood up and turned to leave, but found himself face to face with the Abbot, who smiled beatifically.

Not hungry? said the Abbot. He was a man who seemed to have been chiselled out of marble, for his skin had a bloodless sheen to it and his features a certain kind of statuesque solidity. His expressions were controlled to the point at which they were completely autonomous from any true emotion that still lingered behind his deep, dark, grey eyes.

Bulkington lowered his head.

Don't worry, said the Abbot. He produced an apple from the folds of his habit and offered it to Bulkington. Take it, said the Abbot.

Bulkington boggled and put the apple in his pocket. Before it disappeared amongst the coarse folds of cloth he noticed that it was dappled red and green in a way that was beyond appetizing. He had vaguely heard of food other than gruel, but had always treated such tales with fear and loathing.

The Abbot maintained his smile and put his hand on Bulkington's shoulder. Would you care to join me for a walk of the cloisters? he asked. It was not really a question.

The cloisters would have won some kind of award had anyone inclined to give awards ever seen them. They were full of ornate wooden carvings and exquisite stained-glass windows that caught the morning sun and set colours dancing on the tapestries that lined the far wall.