Lanny

Theres a village an hour from London. Its no different from many others today: one pub one church redbrick cottages some public housing and a few larger houses dotted about. Voices rise up as they might anywhere speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs. This village belongs to the people who live in it to the land and to the lands past. It also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort a mythical figure local schoolchildren used to draw as green and leafy choked by tendrils growing out of his mouth who awakens after a glorious nap. He is listening to this 21st-century village to its symphony of talk: drunken confessions gossip traded on the street corner fretful conversations in living rooms. He is listening intently for a mischievous ethereal boy whose parents have recently made the village their home: Lanny.