We're going Down Under for the third story in The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Follies and Grottoes. Our narrator is a man on a journey who happens across a bar in a little town where the locals have a story to tell. The folly of the title is a tower constructed by the winner of a chess game, which settled a land dispute involving gold rights. Or did it? There's talk of fools gold, and the mysterious way the loser of the match vanished shortly after.
This is a nicely-constructed variant of the traditional ghost story, with some very effective scenes as the protagonist explores the strange tower. Its name comes from its uneven roof, which is inaccessible. And there may be something up there. But no final answers are offered, merely enough detail to let the reader form an opinion. It's a neat tale, clever and good-humoured. I particularly liked the description of follies as 'like garden gnomes on steroids'.
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