Snuggling contentedly among willows near the end of a brambly lane leading out of Orford is Trapper’s Cottage. Like many Suffolk cottages built in the 1620s it has a thatched roof and pink walls. Were we to walk through the low front doorway we would see how the rooms are plain, the ceilings low and the beams exposed, an open staircase leads from the parlour to a small landing and two bedrooms. Successive occupants have enjoyed the seclusion offered by this cottage with its back garden sloping gently down to the river.  
 
Perhaps it’s the river mist that periodically creeps up between the shrubs to lap at the back door, perhaps it’s the air of self-satisfaction it exudes, but people say that there’s something mysterious about this cottage, it has character, spirit. Maybe it’s the influence of the residents over the years, records show that some were really quite strange, one in particular. 
   
Mother Nayland lived here in the 1640s. An aged and gifted practitioner of elemental magic, she filled the cottage with her essence, the garden with useful plants; nightshade, hemlock and wolfsbane, alongside rosemary (for remembrance), yarrow (for healing). Her friend the woodcutter had given her a piece of dark holly heartwood and with great skill she worked this to fashion a small poppet, carefully infusing it with deep magical power. But as it was finished the time came when witch finders were abroad, peeking, seeking, prying and spying, tricking and pricking; the cry went up ‘Ring the bells, fumigate the air, hang the witches!’ Dark it was on the day that Mother was taken away. The poppet saw its chance and went beyond reach, beyond sight, to an away place by the river …  
 
… where (in another time) Flora must not play (says Ma) because the water is dangerous and the banks are slippery. Clay-slippery. Wet-slimy. But still she goes. She needs to be with the river, the trees, the warblers that call and weave their nests in the reeds.  
 
Flora knows the large fish with olive black backs and silver striped sides that swim slowly through the dapple of the water and the small fish that dart warily. She knows the coot’s harsh call, the moorhen’s flicking tail, its thin yellow toes spreading step on step through the labyrinth of tall stems that hiss and sway when the breeze passes through. She knows the voles that swim-scuttle along their pathways and sees their tooth marks on the sedges. Here is heron, still as death, waiting, looking, waiting more, then stabbing, silver prey wriggling then engulfed; and dapper blue jacket, russet vest, kingfisher; perching, searching, minnow flick, minnow flow, plunge and return. These are her creatures and she speaks to them, listens to them, is in her element with them. And in her pocket is poppet, her fingers touching the smoothed wood, it knows her thoughts, her ideas, her worries. Silently it listens because of the wisdom with which it was made so many, many years ago. It knows, it understands. 
 
That which was lost was found. Flora had spotted it in the darkness of the water one day, something that wasn’t there yesterday. With wet-dirty fingers she worked it loose from the encasing ooze. She knew it was special and the spirit of the river had made it findable on that bright morning with yellow irises unfolding and the willows in full leaf. She held it and looked at the thin body, saw the features of the face, the limbs, the smooth dark wood; she dried it, claimed it as her own. It has a story to tell and she knows it has to be hidden. Ma won’t like it, ‘dirty, horrible old thing,’ she’ll say, ‘throw it away, don’t want to see that again!’ she’ll say. So, in the daytime Flora keeps it in her apron pocket. That first night she placed it in the drawer of the washstand in her room. ‘I knew you’d come to me, my poppet, it was just a matter of time,’ she says putting it with her sampler.  
 
‘Mercy! Look at you! You and that river! Be the death of me, you will! All this wet and mud and creatures and the things you do bring back! I’ll not have it, I tell you! Go to your room and stay there until I see fit to let you out.’ 
 
There are mice in the walls and sparrows in the thatch; they keep Flora company through the long afternoon. With the door locked the outside seems so far away as she gazes through the little diamond panes into the garden. ‘I’m a prisoner,’ she tells poppet when she tries the door and it won’t budge, ‘so I’ll work on my sampler.’ Over time this has grown with Flora using needle and thread to make a picture of her world. There’s river and reedbed, willows, swallows, and swifts scything through the air. Here are the words of a charm, there is an invocation to the spirit of the river. There are symbols that she’s only ever seen in her dreams (that deeply secret part of her life). And she has poppet, her wise companion. ‘Ma don’t know about this,’ she says as she places her work carefully into the drawer before climbing into bed, ‘she’d have fifty fits if she found it.’ 
 
Next morning there are footsteps outside the door. They pass by. 
 
‘Ma! … Ma! … Are you there? … Let me out! … Please! …. Please! ….’ 
 
*** 
 
Mary is in the back bedroom examining some old abandoned furniture.  
 
‘Gerry,! Where are you? Please! Come, quick!’  
 
Down in the scullery, Gerry is sweeping years of dirt and grime from the stone floor and wondering if it was such a good idea to buy this run down old place. So romantic it seemed and Mary was in love with it from the start. ‘Trapper’s Cottage’, such connotations of history and rural life. Gerry takes off his face mask, pockets it and hurries upstairs following the urgency of Mary’s voice into the back bedroom. 
 
‘Look at that!’ 
 
Mary, agitated, points to a dark object in the open drawer of an old washstand,  
 
‘What is it?’  
 
Gerry reaches into the drawer and picks out what appears to be a small wooden doll. He explores it with his fingers, feels the smoothness of the wood, the patina suggestive of age and notes the rather odd look on the face of the thing. 
 
‘It’s grotesque,’ says Mary, ‘we’ll have to get rid of it.’ 
 
‘Yes, it’s very weird, not sure really. Anything else in that drawer?’ 
 
‘Only an old piece of fabric … here, it was covering that thing. Looks like some kind of needlework, embroidery or something.’ 
 
‘Let’s take them downstairs and have a proper look.’ 
 
Sipping mugs of coffee from a flask they look at their finds. The doll is put on one side as they spread the square of fabric out on the table. ‘Part of something larger is my guess,’ Mary says, ‘it’s been cut … here, right through that sign, it’s a pentagram, isn’t it? And does that say ‘Flora’? Could do. Strange. Magical even. We’d better get on, let’s put them back in the drawer for now.’ 
 
That was July. It is now October and Gerry, Mary and their daughter, Catherine, have moved in. The removal was trouble free and the place is beginning to look like home. There’s a casserole on the range, a cloth on the table, places set for three. Catherine is happily exploring the damp, tangled, weedy, overgrown garden but under strict instructions not to go too near the river … 
 
The harvest moon is now an orange disc in the river. An owl flies low across the garden, prey in talons. Inside Trapper’s Cottage all is quiet. In the back bedroom a young girl stirs briefly in her sleep as the cold silver light of the rising moon breaks through the thin curtains. Then, deeper into the night a noise disturbs Mary. Like a locked door being tried. She listens, petrified in the darkness, eyes wide open. Then there’s a breathy, whispery, wispy girl’s voice, ‘Ma! … Let me out!’ In an instant Mary is out of bed and at the door of the back bedroom. As she gently pushes it open she hears the rhythmic breathing of her sleeping daughter. The moon has set now, all is dark in the room. Peaceful. Mary returns to bed, tries to sleep … 
 
When Catherine appears for breakfast she is still in her pyjamas. ‘Mummy, I had a dream last night. A girl called Flora was locked in my room and couldn’t get out, she asked me to help her … and when I woke up there was this on my chair.’ Catherine puts a small wooden doll onto the table. ‘Look, Mummy, do you know what this is?’  

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