I opened my front door and walked down my path to my front gate. I checked the mailbox to see if I had any mail. There was nothing. Instead I noticed three snails glued to the inside of the box. I looked around for a likely receptacle to put them in. I noticed over by the water tap a metal bucket with the handle missing. I wandered over and picked up the bucket. I then returned to the mailbox and gently removed each of the snails placing them in the bucket. The last snail was gripped so tightly to the side of the mailbox that I was worried that the pressure I would have to exert prying it off would inevitably squash it. But, then at the last moment, just as I was starting to think I would leave it there it popped off cleanly. I placed it, along with its two  mates in my bucket and took the bucket to the shed in my backyard. 

My shed was filled with all kinds of jars and containers. Over on the far wall was a glass box, already filled with dozens of live snails. I took the bucket and emptied the snails into the glass box along with their friends. I always liked to have plenty of snails on hand, they always came in handy in so many ways. But it wasn't just snails that I collected. In another glass box, beside the snails, were a collection of various beetles and other bugs that were also incredibly useful.

Along one wall of the shed was a set of shelves containing all kinds of odd and ends. There was a box of nails and a bag of cotton buds. There was a cardboard box filled with wood shavings, and another filled with bits of string. In the centre of the shed was a wooden table with a cast iron pot resting in a cradle suspended over a candle. The candle was out but the wick was black and dribbles of wax that had been melted and rehardened ran down the sides of the candle. Also the centre of the candle was hollowed out so it formed a kind of crater. 

In back corner hung bunches and bunches of dried flowers and herbs. I went over and picked some dried lavender, dried rosemary and sage. I took a quick look around the shed making sure everything was ship shape, and it was. Everything was in its place and neatly stored in its proper home. I left the shed, closing the door behind me. After the darkened, enclosed atmosphere inside the shed, the bright sunlight was almost blinding. I walked back to the front garden, blinking to adjust to the glare. 

As I rounded the corner I noticed a small boy and girl on the opposite side of the street. They were standing under the shade of the mighty oak tree that dominated my opposite neighbour's front garden. The boy was dressed in grey flannel shorts and a white linen shirt with suspenders holding up his shorts. He was wearing brown leather boots and his mouse brown hair was short but stood up all spiked in front. The girl wore a blue and white gingham pinafore, blue buckled shoes and white ankle socks. Her red hair formed a halo of springy curls around her head, adorned with a blue bow. They looked directly at me, and their eyes were as black as coal. They smiled, but without showing any teeth. The boy lifted his left arm and pointed directly at me, sending a shiver down my spine. I shook my head and blinked, and the children were gone. 

When I got back into the house, I closed the door behind me and bolted it shut. I leant against the door and slowly regained my composure. Deep breathing in and out and concentrating on slowing my heart rate down. I lifted my right hand and examined it. It was shaking. It had been a long while since anything had unnerved me so much. I looked at my face in the mirror that hung on the wall opposite the door. My face, always a little on the long, and pale side was now gaunt, with a slight greyish tinge. My hair, usually a long honey blonde had turned into white wisps. My pale violet eyes had become dilated and deepened to a dark mauve. 

I peeled myself off the door and went to the kitchen. I took down a blue and white Spode china teapot, teacup and saucer.  I went to my tea caddy and took down the tin of valerian root tea.  I put a teaspoon of the pungent smelling herb into a infuser and put the infuser into the pot. I took my big copper kettle from the stove and poured the nearly boiling water into the pot. I placed the lid on the pot and let the potion steep, the strong earthy smell gradually filling the room, so that the smell alone began to work its wonders reducing my anxiety. 

While the tea was brewing I went to my study and looked through my book shelf. On the shelf, along with various reference sources and other works of varying interest I found what I was looking for. It was a big, black and old book. It looked like it should be heavy, but when I lifted it from down from the top shelf I could feel it adjusting its weight to suit my strength, so that by the time I had returned to the kitchen with it, it had become as light as a single sheet of paper. I placed the book on the kitchen table, and then poured my tea which had had enough time to steep by now. As I started to sip my tea, at first the taste was off putting, as it usually was, but then after a few sips my taste buds began to grow accustomed to the flavour, and I even felt myself enjoying the brew as the properties of the valerian root filled my nervous system and removed the last vestiges of my anxiety. I looked at my reflection in the back of the tea spoon. Even with the distortion caused by the convex shape of the metal, I could see that my appearance was beginning to return to normal. My breathing had returned to normal and my heart had stopped trying to jump out of my chest.

I opened the book, and scanned my finger down the contents page until I found what I was looking for. I turned the pages in large chunks until I got to the page I needed. There, written in the elegant hand of my grandmother was a story that set the blood of all of my kind cold. The story was about a boy and girl who many years ago, in the time of my great grandmother,  came to her house, which also happened to be my house. 

She was known in those days as something of a baker, and her cakes and biscuits were known for being especially delicious.On that particular day, when the children came, my great-grandmother had just made a batch of gingerbread biscuits. They were not long out of the oven, and she had placed them on a plate in the kitchen window to cool.

The kitchen window looked out into the frontyard and the smell of the gingerbread, made with her special, secret aromatic spice mix wafted across the front garden into the street, and out into the village. That was no mean feat either. In those days her cottage was set apart from the rest of the village, nestled in the wood that encircled the small hamlet. The house was small, and had a single, dirt path that ran from her gate to the main forest road that connected the village with the rest of the world. The smell from the gingerbread drifted along the path, and down the road and all through the woods until it reached the inhabitants of that small village. There the people would stop whatever they were doing and lift their noses to savour the wonderful aroma. 

A local woodsman and widower had moved to the village with his two children, a boy, Heinz and a girl, Greta. The children were frequently found playing throughout the village and in the surrounding wood. Whenever they were approached by an adult they would stop what they were doing and look up at them. They would smile and say hello and were always incredibly polite. It was agreed by all the villagers that the children were little angels, and that they could do no wrong. 

At the same time that the woodsman and the children had moved into the village, there had been a number of mysterious disappearances. At first it was just small things, like a few apples from a newly picked bushel, or pegs from a washing line. Then there was a sudden epidemic of wild  animals getting in and killing Mrs Barnsworthy's chickens. One at a time, night after night, until they were all gone.

On the day that my great-grandmother, Freya, had baked the biscuits, she was around the back hanging washing on the line, when she heard a rustling noise coming from the front. She rarely had visitors and most of the villagers tended to avoid her, being wary of the single independent woman in their midst. They only ever came to her when they needed help with an illness or injury because she was known to have all kinds of remedies to fix most ailments. She was also called on by the women of the village to assist them with their pregnancies, both wanted and otherwise. So, if someone was at her house, it meant that it was someone needing her help. 

She put down the washing, and walked around the front to see who it was. She could hear faint giggling, then she rounded the corner and saw two children, a boy and a girl helping themselves to her gingerbread. The girl was being held up to the window ledge, while she handed down the biscuits to her brother. When Freya saw the children she called out both in surprise and anger. The children, being startled at being caught lost their footing. Heinz let go of his sister, and she came tumbling down landing on top of her brother. They fell awkwardly, and all of a sudden Heinz let out a scream of pain.

By now, Freya had caught up to the children and was leaning down to untangle them. As she moved to the boy, she saw that his face was red, and his eyes were screwed tight with pain. As she looked him over she saw he was holding his wrist, which was swollen.