It was something that I’d been thinking about on the way home. Was it because I was a seventh son of a seventh son and had lamia blood in me? Then it struck me that it might have been Alice rather than Lukrasta who had launched the attack. I didn’t want to even think about that, and thrust it from my mind.
The Spook scratched at his beard – a few white flakes of dandruff speckled his black gown. ‘My guess is that what you are is significant. It might well be that you have some resistance to his kind of dark magecraft.’
I nodded. My master and I agreed. It was a possibility. There were many things that I’d inherited from Mam: the ability to slow or stop time; the knowledge that someone was close to death; and, most recently, locating a threat from a distance, which had enabled me to follow the witches and find the Fiend’s head.
‘There’s something else the witches might do,’ I added after a moment’s reflection. ‘They’re heading this way, drawn towards the head. I think they’ll bring his body too so that it’ll be close at hand at Halloween: midnight on that witches’ sabbath – the most powerful feast of all for creatures of the dark – that’s when they’ll hope to join the two pieces of his flesh together and return him to power.’
‘Aye, lad, you’re correct about the day. It was at midnight on the witches’ Lammas sabbath, high on Pendle, that they summoned him to our world. It’s likely that they’ll use Halloween, the most important and propitious dark feast of them all, to repair the damage we’ve done and attempt to ensure his victory over the light. But it may not be at midnight. Sunset is another time when dark spells have increased power – the moment when daylight prepares to give way to darkness.’
After dark I carried a candle upstairs to my old room. Grimalkin was happy to sleep in the garden, by the forge she was building.
Everything in the room had been replaced: the floorboards, the bed, the dressing table and the curtains. There was just one thing that remained; something that I had first examined on the very first night I’d spent in the Spook’s house.
Three walls had been newly plastered, but the fourth had not, despite the fact that it was slightly blackened by smoke. My master had left it intact because upon that wall were thirty names, including my own. They were the names of the apprentices he had trained or, in most cases, begun to train. Over a third of them, including my predecessor, Billy Bradley, had died violent deaths while learning the trade. One at least had gone to the dark, while many others had simply not completed their time. I had met three who had: Father Stocks, Bill Arkwright and, most recently, Judd Brinscall.
I examined my own name and remembered how, on that first night, it had seemed presumptuous to write on the wall. Only later had I screwed up enough courage to do so. I’d searched for a space before adding my name to the preceding ones. It seemed so long ago now; so much had happened since that time.
As I thought of my master again, I sensed that things really were coming to an end. Ever since he’d made his will with the solicitor, Mr Potts, I’d become more and more sure that I would be his last apprentice.
After all, as my master had recently reminded me, Mam had made that prophecy in a letter soon after I was born . . .
Thoughts of Mam brought Alice to mind again. Mam had had a lot of time for Alice, but even she had been uncertain how she’d end up. Her words stuck in my mind.
That girl could be the bane of your life, a blight, a poison on everything you do. Or she might turn out to be the best and strongest friend you’ll ever have. Someone who’ll make all the difference in the world. I just don’t know which way it will go. I can’t see it, no matter how hard I try.
Well, now I knew which way it had gone. All false hope had left me. Alice had indeed gone to the dark.
I set my candle down on the dressing table and then started to undress, starting with my shirt. Suddenly my gaze was drawn to my left forearm.
The mark of Alice’s fingernails had vanished. Years ago, on the night Mother Malkin had been destroyed, she had dug them into my skin and drawn blood. She’d called it her ‘brand’. It had served me well when Mab Mouldheel had tried her magic on me; it had kept me safe.
Alice had told me that it would never fade . . . But now, suddenly, it was gone!
Did this mean that the bond between me and Alice was finally broken?
During one of our first conversations, the Spook had said something to me that I had found both annoying and offensive:
Never trust a woman!
I learned afterwards why he had given me that strange advice. The love of his life had been Meg, a lamia witch, and she had caused him all sorts of problems. And now history had repeated itself.
When I first met her, Alice was already being trained in witchcraft by Bony Lizzie. She’d used magic to protect us both against the Fiend – that was true enough. But from the start she had driven a wedge between me and my master: I had lied or withheld information from him on numerous occasions.
Yes, he had been right all along. I should have listened to his advice.
I should never have trusted Alice Deane.
I BLEW OUT the candle and crawled into bed, feeling miserable and lonely. Sleep proved impossible, and a couple of hours before dawn I got up, stretched my limbs, yawned, and then restlessly paced back and forth across the floorboards of my small bedroom.
After a while I heard a noise outside and peered through the sash window. The eight thick panes of glass obscured my view out into the darkness, so I raised the bottom half of the window. It glided up easily; the carpenter had done a good job. Instantly, cold October air wafted in, making me shiver. I couldn’t see much, but I could certainly hear something: I recognized it as the sound of a hammer on metal.
It had to be Grimalkin. She was nowhere in sight, but I decided to go and talk to her and find out more about how she intended to fix her leg, so I got dressed, pulled on my boots and went downstairs.
I went out through the back door and headed towards the noise, which came from the eastern garden, where the dead witches were buried. It was not a place to venture after dark: anyone else would have worked closer to the house or in the pleasant western garden where I sometimes sat for my lessons; they’d have worked during daylight too. However, I doubted whether a few dead witches would bother a powerful witch like Grimalkin. Though the moon was gibbous and the main garden was well-illuminated with its silver light, it was very dark beneath the trees, and I moved forward cautiously. I passed a gravestone; below it was a patch of earth edged with stones linked by thirteen iron bars. It was the grave of a dead witch – the bars were to stop her crawling out.
I saw a light ahead and realized that it came from a small forge: the anvil was set upon a bed of stones; leaning against it were a number of smith’s hammers. The forge itself was also constructed of stones, and the witch assassin was crouched before it, holding the hilt of a blade with a pair of tongs.
Close by her side was a hessian sack, the lower half stained with blood – no doubt the Fiend’s head lay within it.
I watched as Grimalkin quickly withdrew the blade, then thrust it back, sending up a shower of sparks from the mouth of the forge.
I knew that she made different sorts of blade. The short ones were throwing daggers; the others were for fighting at close quarters. But I had never seen one this long. It looked more like a sword.
Suddenly she spun round and rose to her feet, walking towards me purposefully. She didn’t seem surprised to see me; I realized she’d known I was there, watching her work, all along. I felt nervous – until she smiled, her lips covering her pointy teeth.
‘I’ll leave the blade to heat up for while,’ she said. ‘Let’s walk. I have a few things to tell you.’
Snatching up the sack, Grimalkin headed out of the trees and away from the dead witches. I followed her across the central lawn towards the western garden. Here, by the bench, she paused and stared at me, her eyes glittering in the moonlight.
I was about to ask about her leg, bu
t she pre-empted my question.
‘Tomorrow night I want you to assist me. I intend to break my leg and reset it. I will then drill two holes in the bone and join the sections together with a silver pin.’
‘You’re going to use silver?’ I exclaimed in astonishment. Witches could be bound with silver; it was the most potent weapon against them. It caused them intense pain.
‘It is a necessary part of the magic,’ the witch assassin replied. ‘With a powerful spell of healing, the silver will join the bone and hasten the new growth of flesh and muscle. It will return my leg to its former state. But there is always a price to be paid: sometimes the bill does not come for years; in this case it will arrive immediately. The embedding of the silver pin in my leg will cause me agony.’
‘Will the pain fade in time? How long will you have to endure it?’ I asked.
‘It will last until the moment of my death,’ Grimalkin murmured.
‘But then how will you manage to function?’ I asked.
‘There are disciplines of the mind that I have long practised. For example, by a concentrated effort of will, I am able to cross running water – something that is impossible for most witches. The pain is still there, but I can push it into the background. Eventually I will learn to cope with a silver pin.’
‘I can’t imagine doing that . . .’ I told her.
‘It is difficult, but if I wish to continue to be a witch assassin, it must be done. Come to the southern garden tomorrow night, an hour after sunset. I will have already done the preparatory work – but to insert the pin into my own leg will be beyond me. It is for this, the final stage of the task, that I need your help.’
I agreed to do what she asked, but I wondered why she had chosen the southern garden, which was where the Spook had bound a number of boggarts.
The following day was uneventful. In the afternoon I circled the village and then walked up onto the fells. I wanted to see if any of the witches were approaching the Spook’s house. We didn’t want to be taken by surprise and wake up one morning to find the garden surrounded. I also wanted to clear my head and think. It was very hard to put Alice out of my mind. Halloween was now less than two weeks away. I realized that we couldn’t just drift into the situation and react, always on the back foot. We needed a plan of action. I would have to work something out with the Spook.
I could see no threat to the house, but in the far distance, on the lower slopes, I spotted a small group of women heading north; they were dressed in black and walked in single file – almost certainly witches. Were they heading for the Wardstone, ready for Halloween? It seemed likely. I wondered how many more had taken or would take that same route?
My master had told me that I was the first of his apprentices ever to be taken to the Wardstone, so it was something of a secret. Mab Mouldheel and her sisters had known about it, but that was because she was the most powerful scryer in Pendle. However, it seemed that half the denizens of the dark now knew of the Wardstone and were travelling towards it. Perhaps they had been summoned there by the Fiend . . . Even though his head was detached from his body and his spirit bound within it, he could still sometimes communicate with his servants.
An hour after sunset, dreading the task that faced me, I set off for the southern garden. Once again it was a bright moonlit night.
The witch assassin was already waiting for me. She was lying on her left side, her leg stretched across a flat slab of rock that had been positioned over a pit to bind a boggart. I now understood why Grimalkin had chosen this place: the stone would provide a firm base for her leg when the pin was driven into it. The flesh had been peeled back and tacked with stitches to keep it in place. The bone beneath shone in the moonlight. There was little blood in evidence – no doubt she had kept it at bay using magic – and I could see the hole that she had already drilled in the bone. The silver pin lay on the stone beside her leg, and next to it was a small light hammer.
As I stared at her leg, my mouth went dry and I shuddered. This was going to be hard, but I couldn’t afford to be squeamish. If Grimalkin could tolerate this, I must force myself to help her.
‘The silver pin is slightly tapered,’ Grimalkin explained. ‘Insert the narrow end and then drive it home with the hammer. Three light taps should do it. After that, leave me, and I will do the rest.’
I noted that the bulging, dripping hessian sack was still close by. Even now, facing terrible pain, she had to remain vigilant.
I picked up the pin with my left hand, the hammer with my right. Then I turned, approached Grimalkin and knelt down. After checking the taper, I held the pin above the dark hole in the bone. Glancing at her, I noticed a film of sweat upon her brow and upper lip.
She had already suffered much pain to reach this point; now it would suddenly become far worse – and it would never go away.
‘Don’t waver! Do it now!’ she commanded. ‘The anticipation is worse than the act.’
Wasting no more time, I positioned the pin very carefully and gave it a light tap. Then a second. It was almost fully home, but I felt a little resistance. It was tightening, binding the shattered bones together.
Then I gave a harder third tap, and the pin went in, flush with the surface of the bone.
I had never seen Grimalkin react to pain – beyond the sweat that had stood out on her brow. I had certainly never heard her cry out.
But now, as the pin went home, she let out a scream of agony; her whole body shivered and went into convulsions.
Then she stopped breathing.
WAS SHE DEAD? I wondered in horror. Had the shock of the silver pin killed her?
After all, what could be worse for a witch than to have a piece of silver, that most deadly of metals, inside her own body?
Grimalkin lay perfectly still; it was as if her soul had fled. I touched her forehead and found it ice-cold. But there was nothing I could do. She was beyond the help of doctors.
What if I were to remove the pin . . .? First I would have to turn her onto her other side. There were surely various tools in Grimalkin’s forge. Maybe amongst them I could find a pointed piece of metal and strike the pin out from the opposite side?
But as I came to my feet, I shook my head. It was not that it could not be done – it should not be done! Even if Grimalkin started breathing again and eventually recovered her strength, that leg would never heal properly without the silver pin. She would never again be the deadly witch assassin of old. She would never be able to perform the dance of death. I felt certain that she would rather die.
I started to walk away, intending to tell the Spook what had happened. But at that moment Grimalkin sucked in a huge breath. When I turned round, I saw that her eyes were open, her face twisted with pain.
‘Leave me now!’ Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. ‘I will do the rest alone.’ Then she reached for the sack and clutched it to her.
So I went back into the house and climbed the stairs to my room. It took me a long time to fall asleep. I kept thinking of what I’d just done and the agony that Grimalkin must be enduring. She was prepared to suffer in order to continue her work as a witch assassin.
The following day was bright and mild for October. During breakfast, I told the Spook what I had done to help Grimalkin. ‘She must truly be in agony.’ He shook his head sadly. Then he fell silent, apparently deep in thought.
After breakfast I headed for the southern garden to see how Grimalkin was doing. She was lying on her back on one of the boggart stones, her eyes closed again. With her left hand she still grasped the neck of the sack. I thought she was asleep.
I was wrong.
She spoke to me without opening her eyes. ‘Leave me! Go away! Leave me alone!’ she hissed.
I turned on my heel without a word and did as she commanded. Would she learn to live with the pain? I wondered. Would she ever regain her former strength?
Later my master sent me down to collect the week’s provisions from the village.
At the
grocer’s I got a surprise. A letter from my eldest brother, Jack, was waiting for me. I went back out into the street and leaned back against the wall to read it:
It was good to know that James had survived – though I did not believe that he had simply been captured by opportunistic thugs. On our final journey to Todmorden, Grimalkin had told me that the Fiend wished to speak to me: she had opened the sack and allowed me to talk to him. He had used the opportunity to tell me that my brother was to be killed. I already knew that James’s captors were servants of the dark and that his life was in danger. I was very glad to hear that he was safely back at the farm.
I suspected that he would have been used to bring pressure upon me. Or perhaps, knowing how the Fiend operated, my brother’s head would have been delivered to me in a sack. Mercifully, all that had been averted by James’s strength and determination – a blacksmith can prove a dangerous foe.
But while the Fiend still existed, the threat to all my family remained. He had predicted that I would be the last of my mam’s sons; that they would all die violent deaths before me.
I was a little saddened by the final lines of Jack’s letter. They didn’t want me to stay at the farm overnight because they were scared that something from the dark might be following. Ellie was scared for their daughter Mary. I could hardly blame her. After all, years earlier, the powerful malevolent witch Mother Malkin had indeed pursued me back to the farm and threatened them.
I understood now why it was impossible for a spook to marry; I must keep my distance from any family who were still living. How had I ever imagined that Alice and I could be together? My job would have placed her in permanent danger.
Then I laughed grimly at my foolish thoughts. Alice was powerful in her own right, well able to take care of herself; and now she had found another to share her life with.
I collected the rest of the provisions and carried them back to the Spook’s house. I found him in the library and showed him Jack’s letter.