“Calm yourself, lad,” the Spook said. “I’ll have you free in a moment. . . .”
That said, he used the staff’s blade to cut through my bonds. As I came slowly to my feet, rubbing my wrists to restore the circulation, my master pointed at the knife of one of his assailants, which was lying on the quayside.
“Free her while I stand guard,” he said.
We stepped onto the barge, and staff at the ready, the Spook stood resolutely beside me while I slid back the hatch. Alice stared up at me from below. She was bound and gagged and they’d left her by the dead body of the bargeman.
“The Fiend was here. He’s taken Mr. Gilbert’s shape,” I told my master.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do for the poor man now,” said the Spook, shaking his head sadly. “We’ll have to leave him for others to find and bury. But cut the girl free. We need to be away from here as quickly as possible. The witch isn’t badly hurt. No doubt she’ll be getting ready to try again.”
I could feel Alice trembling as I cut her bonds and helped her from the hold. She didn’t say a word and her eyes were wide with fear. It seemed that the proximity of the Fiend had terrified her even more than it had me.
Once the three of us were standing on the quay, the Spook pointed north, then led us out of the warehouse, walking so fast that I struggled to keep up.
“Aren’t we heading back to Chipenden?” I asked.
“No, we’re not, lad. Not enough time to get there if Morwena gives chase. We’re off to poor Bill Arkwright’s house first. It’s the nearest refuge. But the sooner we get away from this canal bank, the better,” he said, eyeing the water warily.
“I know a quicker route to the mill,” volunteered Alice. “I used to live near there with Bony Lizzie. We need to cross the canal and then keep well to the west.”
“Then lead on, girl,” said the Spook.
So we crossed the first bridge, left the towpath, and headed north through the darkness of the narrow cobbled streets. Caster, with its castle and dungeons, was no place for those who followed our trade; fortunately there were few people about to see our passing. At last, with a sense of relief, we left the city behind us and followed Alice across the countryside, using only the light of the stars and the pale half moon. Eventually, skirting the edge of Monastery Marsh, we reached the mill garden and crossed the salt moat.
“How long since salt was last added?” asked the Spook. They were the first words that anybody had spoken since we left the canal back in Caster.
“I did it only yesterday,” I told him.
As we entered the willow garden, there came a warning growl and Claw bounded up. I reached down and patted her head and she followed at my heels.
“This dog saved my life,” I said. Neither the Spook nor Alice commented, and as we reached the door, Claw went her own way down the side of the house toward the waterwheel. It was better to have her outside anyway. That way she would give warning if a witch approached the garden.
Soon we were in the mill kitchen, and wasting no time, I filled the stove with wood and got it alight. The Spook and Alice sat and watched me work. My master was deep in thought. Alice still looked terrified.
“Shall I make us some early breakfast?” I asked.
My master shook his head firmly. “Better not, lad. We could be facing the dark at any time and need to fast. But no doubt the girl would like something.”
Alice shook her head even more vigorously than the Spook. “I’m not hungry,” she said flatly.
“Well, in that case, we need to try to make some sense of what’s been going on. I smelled a rat from the very first,” asserted the Spook. “As soon as I got back to Chipenden, I read Alice’s note as well as your previous letter. But I was just about to set off for the mill when the bell rang at the crossroads. It was the village smith; someone had pushed a letter under his door with my name on it. It was marked ‘urgent.’ It was in your handwriting, lad, but even more of a shaky scrawl than usual, as if you’d written it in a hurry. It said that you were in serious trouble and needed help. From what it didn’t specify; it simply gave the address of that warehouse in Caster.
“Well, I knew you couldn’t be in two places at once, but as Caster is on the way to the mill, I went there first. I was prepared for trouble and certainly found it. But there’s one thing still bothering me. How did the girl know you were in danger? How did you get word to her?”
The Spook stared at me hard, and I knew I couldn’t avoid telling him the truth. So I took a deep breath. “I used a mirror,” I said, bowing my head, unable to meet his gaze.
“What did you say, lad?” the Spook said, his voice dangerously low. “Did I just hear you right? A mirror? A mirror . . . ?”
“It was the only way I could contact you!” I blurted out. “I was desperate. Mr. Arkwright was dead, murdered by Morwena, and I knew she’d be coming for me next. I needed you. I couldn’t face her alone—”
My master cut me short. “I knew I should never have let a Deane stay with us!” he said angrily, glaring at Alice. “She’s led you into bad ways. Using a tool of the dark like that makes you vulnerable. As soon as you used that mirror, the Fiend would have known where you were; anything you communicated would instantly have been known to him.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said lamely.
“No? Well, you certainly know it now. And as for you, girl,” he went on, standing up and staring hard at Alice, “you’re unusually quiet. Nothing to say for yourself?”
In response Alice covered her face with her hands and began to sob.
“Being close to the Fiend scared her badly,” I said. “I’ve never seen her so shaken.”
“Well, lad, you know what her problem is, don’t you?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what he meant.
“The Fiend is the dark made flesh. The Devil himself, who rules over and owns the souls of those who belong to the dark. The girl here has been trained as a witch and has come close, far too close, to becoming a creature of darkness herself. That being the case, she senses the Fiend’s power and knows just how easily he could steal away her soul. She’s vulnerable and she knows it. That’s what makes her afraid.”
“But—” I began.
“Save your breath, lad! It’s been a long night and I’m too tired to listen. After what you’ve told me, I can hardly bear to look at the two of you so I’m going upstairs to catch up on some sleep. I suggest you two do the same. The dog should warn us if anything gets close.”
When he’d gone upstairs, I turned to Alice. “Come on, he’s right,” I said. “Let’s get some sleep.”
She didn’t reply, and I realized that she was already in a deep slumber. So I settled myself down in my chair, and within a few moments I’d fallen asleep myself.
A few hours later I awoke with a start. Daylight was streaming through the windows, and looking across, I saw that Alice was already awake. But what I saw her doing gave me a shock. She had my pen in her hand and was writing furiously in my notebook, muttering to herself as she did so.
CHAPTER XXI
Hobbled
“ALICE! What are you doing?” I demanded. “Why are you writing in my book?”
She looked up, her eyes wide. “Sorry, Tom. Should have asked you first but I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“But what are you writing?”
“Just jotting down some things that Bony Lizzie taught me; some things that might help us defeat the Fiend. You’re going to need all the help you can get.”
I was horrified. The Spook had once told Alice that she had to tell me the things she’d been taught so that we could increase our knowledge of witch lore and the dark powers that we faced. But this was different. She was suggesting we use the dark to fight the dark and I knew the Spook wouldn’t like it.
“Weren’t you listening last night?” I shot back. “Using the dark is making us vulnerable.”
“Don’t you see that we’re vulnerable already???
?
I turned away.
“Look, Tom, what Old Gregory said about me last night was true. I’ve been as close to the dark as you can get—at least without becoming a fully fledged witch. So I was terrified, being close to the Fiend like that. Ain’t no way I can tell you how I felt. You belong to the light, Tom, fully to the light, and you’ll never get that same feeling. A mixture of terror and despair, it was. A sense that I deserved whatever I got. If he’d asked me to follow him, to be his creature, I’d have done it without another thought.”
“I don’t understand what that’s got to do with anything,” I said.
“Well, I ain’t the first person to feel like that. Once, long ago, the Fiend walked the earth and witches had to deal with that. So there are ways to cope. Ways to keep him at bay. I’m just trying to remember some of them. Lizzie kept Old Nick away from her, but she never told me how she done it; it could be there in some of the things she said.”
“But you’d be using the powers of the dark against him, Alice! That’s the whole point. You heard what the Spook said. It was bad enough using a mirror. Please don’t do something worse.”
“Worse? Worse! What could be worse than having the Devil appear right in this room now and be unable to do anything about it? Old Gregory can’t do nothing. Reckon he’s scared. Reckon this time he’s up against something just too big and dangerous for him to cope with. Surprised he ain’t gone back to Chipenden, where he’d feel safer!”
“No, Alice! If he’s scared, then he’s got good reason for it but the Spook isn’t a coward. He’ll have a plan. But don’t use the dark, Alice. Forget what Bony Lizzie taught you. Please don’t do it. No good can come of it—”
At that moment I heard the clump of boots coming down the stairs, and Alice ripped the page out, screwed it up, and stuffed it in her sleeve. Then she quickly pushed the pen and notebook back into my bag.
As the Spook came into the kitchen, carrying Arkwright’s book, she gave me a sad smile.
“Right, you two,” he said. “Feeling better?”
Alice nodded and he gave her the slightest nod in return before sitting down on the chair nearest to the stove.
“I hope you’ve both learned something from yesterday,” he continued. “Using the dark will only weaken us. Do you understand that now?”
I nodded but hardly dared look at Alice.
“Well,” my master went on, “it’s time to continue our discussion and decide what’s to be done. I’ve learned a lot about the Fiend’s daughter. It’s a far better book than I thought Bill Arkwright capable of. I want you to start at the beginning, lad, and tell me everything that happened from the moment you came to the mill for the first time until I found you bound and gagged in the warehouse. I can see you’ve been in the wars,” he said, glancing at my sore ear, “so take your time. Give me all the details. There might be something important.”
So I began my account, leaving nothing out. When I reached the point where Arkwright gave me the letter and I decided to return to the mill, my master interrupted for the first time.
“It was as I feared. Bill Arkwright has demons inside him when he drinks. I’m sorry you suffered like that, lad, but I did intend this training for the best. He’s younger and stronger than me and there are things he can teach you that I can’t anymore. You need toughening up to fight the Fiend and win—we might have to try things that we’ve never dreamed of before.”
At that Alice gave me the faintest of smiles but I ignored her and carried on with my tale. I told him about the attack of the water witch when she’d almost killed me, how we’d crossed the sands to reach Cartmel, and of our meeting with the hermit. I recounted how Arkwright had had to drive out the press-gang before the hermit would dowse for him and discover the whereabouts of Morwena. Some sections of my tale were uncomfortable to tell: particularly finding the dead dog and Arkwright’s boot in the water, and, of course, using the mirror to communicate with Alice. But at last, describing how I’d crossed the dangerous sands once again and returned to the mill, I finally pushed on to the ending of my tale in the warehouse.
“Well, lad, you’ve had a hard time of it but it’s not as bad as you think. For one thing, I have a feeling that Bill Arkwright’s probably still alive. . . .”
I looked at my master in astonishment.
“Close your mouth, lad, or you’ll start catching flies,” he said with a grin. “You’re probably wondering how I know that. Well, to be honest, I’m not absolutely sure, but I have three things that point to him having survived. The first is a hunch. Pure instinct. You should always trust your instincts, lad, as I’ve told you before. And they tell me that Bill is still alive. The second is the ghost of his mother. You’ve just told me what she said to you, and last night she said pretty much the same to me—”
“But how can she know,” I demanded, “when she’s bound to her bones and can’t travel much farther than the mill garden?”
“Amelia is no ordinary ghost, lad. Technically she’s what we sometimes term a water wraith because she suffered death by drowning. Not only that. In a rash moment she killed herself, and many who do that instantly regret it but do so when it’s too late. Such troubled spirits can sometimes be in tune with the living,” he answered. “Bill and his mother were very close. So her spirit senses that something really bad has happened to him; that he needs help; that he’s still alive. And she told me that he’s shackled within the bowels of the earth, still waiting to die—the very same words she said to you.
“And the third thing is what I’ve gained from reading this book. Sacrifices to Morwena were made at the approach of the full moon. . . .”
The Spook opened the book and read aloud from it:
“The young were cast into the Blood Pool; older offerings were chained in a subterranean chamber until the propitious moment.”
“If that’s true, then where will he be? Somewhere underground back up near the lakes?”
“Could be, lad, but I know one way we might find out for sure. That hermit up at Cartmel. If he could dowse for Morwena, then maybe he could find Arkwright for us. If they’re saving Bill for the full moon, we have six days to find him. But the approach of the full moon suggests we’ve less leeway. In any case we have to go north again. It’s our duty to sort out that witch before she sorts us.”
“The thing that’s puzzling me,” I said, “is why the Fiend left us. Had he stayed Morwena would have won. With him there we’d have been helpless. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Indeed, lad. What’s more, why doesn’t the Fiend just appear now, kill you, and get it over with? What’s stopping him?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe he’s got more important business to attend to.”
“No doubt he has other things to deal with, but you pose one of the biggest threats to him in the County. No, there’s more to it than that. I found out some interesting things while I was looking in your mother’s trunks. The reason the Fiend hasn’t destroyed you immediately is because he’s been hobbled.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Well, you should be able to work that out for yourself, lad, coming as you do from a farming family.”
“You hobble a horse. Tie its legs,” I said.
“That you do, lad. You tie them so that it can’t stray too far. So a hobble is a limitation or impediment. The Fiend’s power is circumscribed in a powerful way. If he kills you—if he does it himself—then he’ll reign on in our world for a hundred years before he’s forced to retreat back to where he came from.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If that’s true, why doesn’t he just come and kill me now? Isn’t that what he wants, to rule the world in a new dark age?”
“The problem is, for the Fiend a hundred years isn’t that long. Time isn’t the same for him and a century might seem hardly more than the blinking of an eye. Oh no, he wants to rule for much longer than that.”
“So am I safe?”
“No. U
nfortunately it says in your mam’s book that if he gets one of his children to kill you, then he can rule on in the world, and that’s why he’s sent his daughter to do the job.”
“Does he have many children?” Alice asked.
“That I don’t rightly know,” he said. “But if Morwena can’t defeat Tom—and let’s face it, she’s failed twice already—and if the Fiend has no other children to help, then there is a third way he’ll try to destroy you. He’ll try to convert you to the dark—”
“Never!” I shouted.
“You say that, but already you’ve used the dark and weakened yourself with those mirrors. If he can win you over to the dark, his dominion will last until the end of the world. So that’s the one that really worries me, lad. He’s powerful, yes. Really powerful. But also crafty. That’s why we can’t afford to compromise with the dark in any way.”
“Who created the hobbles?” I asked. “Who has the strength to limit the Fiend’s power in that way? Was it my mam?”
The Spook shrugged. “I don’t know, lad. I found no evidence that it was she who’d done it—but yes, that was my first instinct. Only a mother would put herself at risk like that to protect her child.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are always things that oppose the dark and circumscribe its power. My guess is that whoever managed to do so paid a terrible price. Such things are not achieved without something being given up in exchange. I searched that trunk carefully but could find nothing at all to explain it.”
If it was my mam who had tried to protect me, I suddenly felt worried for her. What price had she paid to help me? Was she suffering in Greece now as a result?
Alice must have sensed my fears and moved closer to me to offer me some comfort. But the Spook had no time for such emotions.
“We’ve talked and rested enough,” he said. “It’s time for action. We’re off to Cartmel now. If the tides are right, we could be safely across the bay before nightfall.”
Within an hour we were on our way. I was really hungry but had to make do with a mouthful of crumbly County cheese to keep up my strength. My master offered some to Alice but she refused.