On soft sand by the sea's edge a little boy walked leaving no footprints. Gulls cried in the bright sunless sky, trout leaped from the saltless ocean. Ear off on the horizon the sea serpent raised himself a moment in seven enormous arches and then, bellowing, sank. The child whistled but the sea serpent, busy hunting whales, did not surface again. The child walked on casting no shadow, leaving no tracks on the sand between the cliffs and the sea. Ahead of him rose a grassy headland on which stood a four-legged hut. As he climbed a path up the cliff the hut skipped about and rubbed its front legs together like a lawyer or a fly; but the hands of the clock inside, which said ten minutes of ten, never moved.

«What's that you've got there, Dicky?» asked his mother as she added parsley and a pinch of pepper to the rabbit stew simmering in an alembic.

«A box, Mummy.»

«Where did you find it?»

Mummy's familiar leaped down from the onion-festooned rafters and, draping itself like a foxfur round her neck, said, «By the sea.»

Dicky nodded. «That's right. The sea washed it up.»

«And what's inside it?»

The familiar said nothing, but purred. The witch turned round to look into her son's round face. «What's in it?» she repeated.

«Darkness.»

«Oh? Let's see.»

As she bent down to look, the familiar, still purring, shut its eyes. Holding the box against his chest, the little boy very carefully lifted the lid a scant inch.

«So it is,» said his mother. «Now put it away, don't let it get knocked about. I wonder where the key got to. Run wash your hands now. Table, lay!» And while the child worked the heavy pump handle in the yard and splashed his face and hands, the hut resounded with the clatter of plates and forks materializing.