The Flight of Birds Author:Alan Howard This is the tale of an haunting, in modern times, of a girl by her own dead mother. Encountering her 'ghost' in the East wing of the Great House nearby, a wing long-since rebuilt after a fire in Elizabethan times, Kate is gradually compelled to unravel the terrible history of this place. Through the fascinating Tales of Shabby Tattler, a one-eye... more »d vagabond whose power of description seems to bring to life those he depicts, Kate is drawn into a past world in which she finds herself a living victim, trapped by circumstance and helpless to alter the terrifying unfolding of events. Based on a Greek legend, its Elizabethan setting is only loosely historical inasmuch as its purpose is far from attempting to depict the life of that era. It is the first in a trilogy of tales through which mysterious figure of the Shabby Tattler weaves to form a 'Danse Macabre' through time. 'The Toadman' forms the second part and 'Reprise' the third.« less