A strange black cloaked rider comes to Matlock at dusk and tells James the Tanner than his mother is deathly ill. To reach her, he must fare to Cromford over the stone bridge with its little chapel…but the way is dark and dangerous, haunted by outlaws, wild beasts and much darker things. As he journeys through the darkness, James meets three green-clad women who speak strange words and gift him with posies. They tell him to beware of Crooker–the Crooked One.
As he reaches the bridge, the moon sets–and suddenly the bent, crooked ash tree on the water’s edge is not just a leafless tree anymore.
The malevolent Crooker has come to life and the river roars its hunger…
A retelling of the Derbyshire legend of ‘Crooker’, part3 in the ‘IN A SILVER SEA’ series of retold British myths and legends.
SHORT STORY OF APPROXIMATELY 5000 WORDS