At first, all they passed were tall, conical trees that made Rube think of the spade symbol you got on cards, spaced out along the side of the road at two-yard intervals. As they went on, though, there was more. Every shade of green you could think of, with occasional flashes of pink and blue. Rocky streams with miniature waterfalls and wooden bridges. Little black ponds covered in reeds and lilypads, like in a cartoon. What looked like a hedge-maze, off in the distance. Fountains with three or four layers, splashing water that looked like an impossible shade of blue. Clusters of tall, leafy willows casting ominous shadows across the grass. And throughout it all, little white garden walls wound through it, like someone had put a marble net over the whole thing.

The first things Rube noticed, when she finally saw the house close-up, were the two marble lions perched on the roof of the veranda, each with a raised front paw and a snarl on its lips. Rube wondered how old they were. The looked like they’d been made out of the same rough, off-white stone as the rest of the house, but there wasn’t any weathering on their faces. You could still see every whisker, even from four metres below them.

“Does Uncle Colwyn drive?” asked Jeanette, looking around for a parking space or a garage, “He must do, right? He’s barely walking-distance from his front gate, let alone the shops.”

“I don’t know,” said Rube. She seemed to remember him taking the train down to visit them at least once.

The house was four storeys, all white stone, black railings and wooden shutters, and Rube found it hard to imagine what it must be like to live there alone. Maybe that was why Colwyn had been so quick to invite them to stay- the company of three annoying nieces was better than no company at all.

They went up to the veranda, and Rube unlocked the door. When she got it open, she was relieved to find that the house smelled nice- warm wood and fresh air. It wouldn’t have been a good sign if she’d smelled mould or dust. Or old food, which you could smell at one of her friends’ houses back home and which meant that Rube couldn’t spend more than five minutes in there without gagging.

They walked inside, and saw that the whole bottom floor seemed to be one room. You came through the door to the living room, and the dining table and kitchen unit were at the back, behind the staircase. At various points around the walls, there were French windows, leading out to the gardens.

“I’m sure there’s some kind of feng shui thing about not putting the stairs right across the room like that,” said Jeanette.

“I don’t think that’s how it’s pronounced,” Rube replied. She walked over to the coffee table opposite the sofa, and found another note from Uncle Colwyn.

Dear girls,

I’m so sorry I couldn’t be here this evening. I’ve prepared a salad for dinner, but if you’re not in the mood for that, there’s plenty of other food in the fridge. I hope to be back tomorrow morning at the latest.

Yours,

Colwyn

Rube walked through to the kitchen, and found the salad bowl in the fridge, covered with clingfilm. “This looks nice,” she told the other two. She’d probably have said it anyway, just to be encouraging, but it did look nice. It was one of those salads with cheese and fruit thrown in, as opposed to Mum’s salads, which were usually just cucumber, lettuce, tomato, and maybe some red onions if you were lucky.

Rube turned round to put it on the table, and saw the horse.

Not an actual, flesh-and-blood horse, obviously, though it had made her jump just as much as if it was. This horse looked as if it was made out of wood and wicker. It was a head mounted to the wall like a hunting trophy from the bad old days, and underneath was a label saying Falada.

When Jeanette came over to see it, she made a little impressed noise in the back of her throat. “Why do you think it’s called Falada?”

“It’s from a fairy tale,” explained Sally, “The one about… um, there’s a kidnapped princess, and they kill her horse so it can’t tell anyone who she is, but then its head carries on talking anyway…” At this, she eyed the horse nervously, as if she expected it to start speaking there and then. It wasn’t just her, either- Rube found herself checking around the base for any microphones or mechanical bits.

After a moment or two, by which time they were all reasonably certain that they didn’t have a talking wooden horse on their hands, Jeanette leaned forward and patted it on the nose. “I wish we had something like this at ours. Do you think he’ll tell us where he got it?”

“I think maybe he made it himself,” said Rube. She didn’t know why she thought that, but she did. Maybe it was something about the unevenness of the wicker. Or maybe it was just comforting to think of Uncle Colwyn as the kind of guy who’d spend weeks on end making something sweet and odd like this. It wouldn’t be so bad to spend five weeks with a man like that.

Jeanette straightened up. “Anyway. Salad?”

“Salad,” agreed Rube, and they went to sit at the dining room table.

(To Be Continued)