Mother Shipton and The Passenger: Chapter One

While scouring the moth ID book for species I am likely to see at the weekend, I was mesmerised by their wonderfully descriptive names and decided to write a story using these names. I am totally making this up as I go along, it requires you to be a little creative and imaginitive but its a lot of fun to think up stories involving objects/description in the names.
This first chapter contains 55 different moth names - can you spot them all?

It was a frosty winter's morning when Mother Shipton began her slow journey down to the shops. She was admiring the crescent of brick houses being buit just on the corner when she heard a strange squeak: she looked up but it was just a magpie flying over. It landed in a tree next to a small magpie which she suspected was its baby waiting to be fed. The tree was in a beautiful gothic style garden full of peach blossom. She was then alerted to an even stranger squeak: this time it came from a human being. It was the traveller that had been sleeping in the doorway of the old butcher's shop. He looked like a chimney sweeper as he had a black collar and a black neck, and a pile of sweeper's brushes lay next to him in the dark arches of the doorway. Mother Shipton crossed the street to see if he was ok. As she got nearer she could see he was very old - his many-lined face was wrinkled and scarred. He smelled faintly of nutmeg, which she thought seemed odd. He looked up at her with grey eyes as she appraoched. He squeaked again. She saw the brown paper bag that he clutched and realised he must be a drinker. She has second thoughts about helping him as his expression soured and she noticed the pair of shears poking out from beneath the square of dotted carpet on which he sat. She beat a hasty retreat, troubled by the image of his bitter face.

She continued on her journey to the shops. The old sycamore growing in the town square was billowing with great green arches of leaf-clad branches that swayed in the breeze. She passed by where the figure of eight was carved into the rough bark. She had carved it as a teenager, only she knew its significance.  Somebody had carved a chinese character above it. She carried on past the tree to the jewellers from which she needed to collect her gem stones. They was being polished and valued by the owner who was a good friend of her brother. She opened the huge, heavy chestnut door and entered the dingy shell of a shop - it was tiny and cramped. The dark marbled carpet was dusty and encrusted, she could just make out its reddish buff pattern by the light of a flickering flame. Clifden Nonpareil was a rather distinguished old chap; an ex-geometrician from Cambridge University who had taken up gemology after giving up teaching. He had opened up the shop, The Cumberland Gem, about 7 years ago with the help of Mother Shipton's brother.

Clifden had the gems ready laid out on his counter on a burnished brass tray. He was nappingion his great rustic armchair, covered by an old tablecloth with a large lace border. Mother Shipton coughed to assert her presence. Clifden awoke with a start, mumbking something about an old lady in a triangle; it sounded like an interesting dream! He noticed Mother Shipton and apologised. He gathered his thoughts and collected up the gems to show her. There were severl little emeralds and one large emerald; Clifden showed a very blotched emerald that he had failed to clean. There was a big lump of rose quartz with a beautiful rosy wave through the middle. Mother Shipton noticed the ring on Clifden's right hand...a simple gold band with a plain golden Y engraved on the outside. She had never noticed it before, and it brought back a distant memory of an identical ring her brother had years ago. She stood for a moment, confused, until she was brought back to the present by a cup of earl grey being forced into her hand. She drank the tea and settled up payment with Clifden who announced he was off upstairs to finish his nap in private. He blew out the candle and in a brief smoky wave he was gone upstairs.

Mother Shipton let herself out and crossed the square to the Phoenix Bookshop, puzzled by the images of the ring and the bitter traveller. From within the bookshop she could see the traveller through the window, sitting quietly on his mottled grey carpet. She stared at him for a while, intrigued by the way he entertained himself with a copy of Cosmopolitan from a nearby bin. She sudden realised she was pretending to read a book called Maiden's Blush - she had inadvertantly stopped in the Mills & Boon section! She was most embarrased and hurriedly replaced the book should anyone catch her with it. She glanced back toward the archway to find that the traveller had gone. His brushes were also gone, all that remained was the pair of dingy shears. She ran out across the street but there was no sign of the man. She bent to look closer at the shears and, as she picked them up, she noticed a familar etching on the handle: a silver Y, just like the one on Clifden's ring. She stood, mouth wide open, looking towards a patch of small grey birch trees between two shops. Amongst them was parked a truck. She could just make out the face of the passenger as the truck pulled away beneath the silver arches of the birch trees.