The Spook's Apprentice by Joseph Delaney
There was hot soup and a blazing fire waiting for us in the kitchen. I wrapped little Tommy in a warm blanket and fed him some soup. Later I brought down a couple of pillows and made up a bed for him close to the fire. He slept like a log while I listened to the wind howling outside and the rain pattering against the windows.
It was a long night but I was warm and comfortable and I felt at peace in the Spook’s house, which was one of the safest places in the whole wide world. I knew now that nothing unwelcome could even enter the garden, never mind cross the threshold. It was safer than a castle with high battlements and a wide moat. I began to think of the boggart as my friend, and a very powerful friend at that.
Just before noon I carried Tommy down to the village. The men were already back from the Long Ridge, and when I went to the butcher’s house, the instant he saw the child, his weary frown turned into a broad smile. I briefly explained what had happened, only going into as much detail as was necessary.
Once I’d finished, he frowned again. ‘They need sorting out once and for all,’ he said.
I didn’t stay long. After Tommy had been given to his mother and she’d thanked me for the fifteenth time, it became obvious what was going to happen. By then, about thirty or so of the village men had gathered. Some of them were carrying clubs and stout sticks and they were muttering angrily about ‘stoning and burning’.
I knew that something had to be done but I didn’t want to be a part of it. Despite all that had happened, I couldn’t stand the thought of Alice being hurt, so I went for a walk on the fells for an hour or so to clear my head, before walking slowly back towards the Spook’s house. I’d decided to sit on the bench for a while and enjoy the afternoon sun, but someone was there already.
It was the Spook. He was safe after all! Until that moment I’d avoided thinking about what I was going to do next. I mean, how long would I have stayed in his house before deciding that he wasn’t going to come back? Now it was all sorted out because there he was, staring across the trees to where a plume of brown smoke was rising. They were burning Bony Lizzie’s house.
When I got close to the bench, I noticed a big, purple bruise over his left eye. He saw me glance at it and gave me a tired smile.
‘We make a lot of enemies in this job,’ he said, ‘and sometimes you need eyes in the back of your head. Still, things didn’t work out too badly because now we’ve one less enemy to worry about near Pendle. Take a pew,’ he said, patting the bench at his side. ‘What have you been up to? Tell me what’s been happening here. Start at the beginning and finish at the end, leaving nothing out.’
So I did. I told him everything. When I’d finished he stood up and looked down at me, his green eyes staring into mine very hard.
‘I wish I’d known Lizzie was back. When I put Mother Malkin into the pit, Lizzie left in a bit of a hurry and I didn’t think she’d ever have the nerve to show her face again. You should have told me about meeting the girl. It would have saved everybody a lot of trouble.’
I looked down, unable to meet his eyes.
‘What was the worst thing that happened?’ he asked.
The memory came back, sharp and clear, of the old witch grabbing my boot and trying to drag herself out of the water. I remembered her scream as she gripped the end of the Spook’s staff.
When I told him about it, he sighed long and deep.
‘Are you sure she was dead?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘She wasn’t breathing. Then her body was carried to the middle of the river and swept away.’
‘Well, it was a bad business, all right,’ he said, ‘and the memory of it will stay with you for the rest of your life, but you’ll just have to live with it. You were lucky in taking the smallest of my staffs with you. That’s what saved you in the end. It’s made of rowan, the most effective wood of all when dealing with witches. It wouldn’t usually have bothered a witch that old and that strong, but she was in running water. So you were lucky, but you did all right for a new apprentice. You showed courage, real courage, and you saved a child’s life. But you made two more serious mistakes.’
I bowed my head. I thought I’d probably made more than two but I wasn’t going to argue.
‘Your most serious mistake was in killing that witch,’ the Spook said. ‘She should have been brought back here. Mother Malkin is so strong that she could even break free of her bones. It’s very rare but it can happen. Her spirit could be born into this world again, complete with all her memories. Then she’d come looking for you, lad, and she’d want revenge.’
‘That would take years though, wouldn’t it?’ I asked.
‘A newborn baby can’t do much. She’d have to grow up first.’
"That’s the worst part of it,’ the Spook said. ‘It could happen sooner than you think. Her spirit could seize someone else’s body and use it as her own. It’s called "possession" and it’s a bad business for everybody concerned. After that, you’ll never know when, and from which direction, the danger will come.
‘She might possess the body of a young woman, a lass with a dazzling smile, who’ll win your heart before she takes your life. Or she might use her beauty to bend some strong man to her will, a knight or a judge, who’ll have you thrown into a dungeon where you’ll be at her mercy. Then again, time will be on her side. She might attack when I’m not here to help -maybe years from now when you’re long past your prime, when your eyesight’s failing and your joints are starting to creak.
‘But there’s another type of possession - one that’s more likely in this case. Much more likely. You see, lad, there’s a problem with keeping a live witch in a pit like that. Especially one so powerful who’s spent her long life practising blood magic. She’ll have been eating worms and other slithery things, with the wet constantly soaking into her flesh. So in the same way that a tree can slowly be petrified and turned into rock, her body will have been slowly starting to change. Gripping the rowan staff would have stopped her heart, pushing her over the barrier into death, and being washed away by the river might have speeded up the process.
‘In this case, she’ll still be bound to her bones, like most other malevolent witches, but because of her great strength she’ll be able to move her dead body. You see, lad, she’ll be what we call "wick". It’s an old County word that you’re no doubt familiar with. Just as a head of hair can be wick with lice, her dead body is now wick with her wicked spirit. It’ll be heaving like a bowl of maggots and she’ll crawl, slither or drag herself towards her chosen victim. And instead of being hard, like a petrified tree, her dead body will be soft and pliable, able to squeeze into the tiniest space. Able to ooze up someone’s nose or into their ear and possess their body.
‘There are only two ways to make sure that a witch as powerful as Mother Malkin can’t come back. The first is to burn her. But nobody should have to suffer pain like that. The other way is too horrible even to think about. It’s a method few have heard about because it was practised long ago, in a land far away over the sea. According to their ancient books, if you eat the heart of a witch she can never return. And you have to eat it raw.
‘If we practise either method, we’re no better than the witch we kill,’ said the Spook. ‘Both are barbaric. The only alternative left is the pit. That’s cruel as well, but we do it to protect the innocents, those who’d be her future victims. Well, lad, one way or the other, now she’s free. There’s trouble ahead for sure, but there’s little we can do about it now. We’ll just have to be on our guard.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll manage somehow.’
‘Well, you’d better start by learning how to manage a boggart,’ the Spook said, shaking his head sadly.
‘That was your other big mistake. A whole Sunday off every week? That’s far too generous! Anyway, what should we do about that?’ he asked, gesturing towards a thin plume of smoke that was still just visible to the south-east.
I shrugged. ‘I suppose it’ll be all over by now,’ I s
‘All over with? Don’t you believe it, lad. A witch like Lizzie has a sense of smell better than any hunting dog. She can sniff out things before they happen and would’ve been gone long before anyone got near. No, she’ll have fled back to Pendle, where most of the brood live. We should follow now, but I’ve been on the road for days and I’m too weary and sore and need to gather my strength. But we can’t leave Lizzie free for too long or she’ll start to work her mischief again. I’ll have to go after her before the end of the week and you’ll be coming with me. It won’t be easy but you might as well get used to the idea. But first things first, so follow me ...’
As I followed, I noticed that he had a slight limp and was walking more slowly than usual. So whatever had happened on Pendle, it hadn’t been without cost to himself. He led me into the house, up the stairs and into the library, halting beside the furthest shelves, the ones near the window.
‘I like to keep my books in my library,’ he said, ‘and I like my library to get bigger rather than smaller. But because of what’s happened, I’m going to make an exception.’
He reached up and took a book from the very top shelf and handed it to me. ‘You need this more than I do,’ he said. ‘A lot more.’
As books went it wasn’t very big. It was even smaller than my notebook. Like most of the Spook’s books, it was bound in leather and had its title printed both on the front cover and on the spine. It said: Possession: the Damned, the Dizzy and the Desperate.
‘What does the title mean?’ I asked.
‘What it says, lad. Exactly what it says. Read the book and you’ll find out.’
When I opened the book, I was disappointed. Inside, every word on every page was printed in Latin, a language I couldn’t read.
‘Study it well and carry it with you at all times,’ said the Spook. ‘It’s the definitive work.’
He must have seen me frowning because he smiled and jabbed at the book with his finger. ‘Definitive means that so far it’s the best book that’s ever been written about possession, but it’s a very difficult subject and it was written by a young man who still had a lot to learn. So it’s not the last word on the subject and there’s more to discover. Turn to the back of the book.’
I did as he told me and found that the last ten or so pages were blank.
‘If you find out anything new, then just write it down there. Every little bit helps. And don’t worry about the fact that it’s in Latin. I’ll be starting your lessons as soon as we’ve eaten.’
We went for our afternoon meal, which was cooked almost to perfection. As I swallowed down my last mouthful, something moved under the table and began to rub itself against my legs. Suddenly the sound of purring could be heard. It gradually got louder and louder until all the plates and dishes on the sideboard began to rattle.
‘No wonder it’s happy,’ said the Spook, shaking his head. ‘One day off a year would have been nearer the mark! Still, not to worry, it’s business as usual and life goes on. Bring your notebook with you, lad, we’ve a lot to get through today.’
So I followed the Spook down the path to the bench, uncorked the bottle of ink, dipped in my pen and prepared to take notes.
‘Once they’ve passed the test in Horshaw,’ said the Spook, starting to limp up and down in front of the bench, ‘I usually try to ease my apprentices into the job as gently as possible. But now that you’ve been face to face with a witch, you know how difficult and dangerous the job can be and I think you’re ready to find out what happened to my last apprentice. It’s linked to boggarts, the topic we’ve been studying, so you might as well learn from it. Find a clean page and write down this for a heading ...’
I did as I was told. I wrote down, ‘How to Bind a Boggart’. Then, as the Spook told the tale, I took notes, struggling to keep up as usual.
As I already knew, binding a boggart involved a lot of hard work which the Spook called ‘laying’. First a pit had to be dug as close as possible to the roots of a large, mature tree. After all the digging the Spook had made me do, I was surprised to learn that a spook rarely dug the pit himself. That was something only done in an absolute emergency. A rigger and his mate usually attended to that.
Next you had to employ a mason to cut a thick slab of stone to fit over the pit like a gravestone. It was very important that the stone was cut to size accurately so as to make a good seal. After you’d coated the lower edge of the stone and the inside of the pit with the mixture of iron, salt and strong glue, it was time to get the boggart safely inside.
That wasn’t too difficult. Blood, milk or a combination of the two worked every time. The really difficult bit was dropping the stone into position as it fed. Success depended on the quality of the help you hired.
It was best to have a mason standing by and a couple of riggers using chains controlled from a wooden gantry placed above the pit, so as to lower the stone down quickly and safely.
That was the mistake that Billy Bradley made. It was late winter and the weather was foul and Billy was in a rush to get back to his warm bed. So he cut corners.
He used local labourers, who hadn’t done that type of work before. The mason had gone off for his supper, promising to return within the hour, but Billy was impatient and couldn’t wait. He got the boggart into the pit without too much trouble but ran into difficulties with the slab of stone. It was a wet night and it slipped, trapping his left hand under its edge.
The chain jammed so they couldn’t lift the stone, and while the labourers struggled with it, and one of them ran back to get the mason, the boggart, in a fury at being trapped under the stone, began to attack Billy’s fingers. You see, it was one of the most dangerous boggarts of all. They’re called ‘Rippers’ and they usually just feed from cattle, but this one had got the taste for human blood.
By the time the stone was lifted, almost half an hour had passed, and by then it was too late. The boggart had bitten off Billy’s fingers as far down as the second knuckle and had been busily sucking the blood from his body. His screams of pain had faded away to a whimper, and when they got his hand free, only his thumb was left. Soon afterwards he died of shock and loss of blood.
‘It was a sad business,’ said the Spook, ‘and now he’s buried under the hedge, just outside the churchyard at Layton - those who follow our trade don’t get to rest their bones in hallowed ground. It happened just over a year ago, and if Billy had lived, I wouldn’t be talking to you now because he’d still be my apprentice. Poor Billy, he was a good lad and he didn’t deserve that, but it’s a dangerous job and if it’s not done right...’
The Spook looked at me sadly then shrugged. ‘Learn from it, lad. We need courage and patience, but above all, we never rush. We use our brains, we think carefully, then we do what has to be done. In the normal course of events I never send an apprentice out on his own until his first year of training is over. Unless, of course,’ he added with a faint smile, ‘he takes matters into his own hands. Then again, I’ve got to feel sure he’s ready for it. Anyway, first things first,’ he said. ‘Now it’s time for your first Latin lesson...’
Chapter Eleven
The Pit
It happened just three days later ... The Spook had sent me down into the village to collect the week’s groceries. It was very late in the afternoon, and as I left his house carrying the empty sack, the shadows were already beginning to lengthen.
As I approached the stile, I saw someone standing right on the edge of the trees near the top of the narrow lane. When I realized that it was Alice, my heart lurched into a more rapid beat. What was she doing here? Why hadn’t she gone off to Pendle? And if she was still here, what about Lizzie?
I slowed down but I had to pass her to get to the village. I could’ve gone back and taken a longer route but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of thinking I was scared of her. Even so, once I’d climbed over the stile, I stayed on the left
Alice was standing in the gloom, with just the toes of her pointy shoes poking out into the sunlight. She beckoned me closer but I kept my distance, staying a { good three paces away. After all that had happened, I didn’t trust her one little bit, but I was still glad that she hadn’t been burned or stoned.
‘I’ve come to say goodbye,’ Alice said, ‘and warn you never to go walking near Pendle. That’s where we’re going. Lizzie has family living there.’
‘I’m glad you escaped,’ I said, coming to a halt and turning to face directly towards her. ‘I watched the smoke when they burned your house down.’
‘Lizzie knew they were coming,’ Alice said, ‘so we got away with plenty of time to spare. Didn’t sniff you out though, did she? Knows what you did to Mother Malkin, though, but only found out after it happened.
Didn’t sniff you out at all and that worries her. And she said your shadow had a funny smell.’
I laughed out loud at that. I mean, it was crazy. How could a shadow have a smell?
‘Ain’t funny,’ Alice accused. ‘Ain’t nothing to laugh at. She only smelled your shadow where it had fallen on the barn. I actually saw it and it was all wrong. The moon showed the truth of you.’
Suddenly she took two steps nearer, into the sunlight, then leaned forward a little and sniffed at me. ‘You do smell funny,’ she said, wrinkling up her nose. She stepped backwards quickly and suddenly looked afraid.
I smiled and put on my friendly voice. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘don’t go to Pendle. You’re better off without them. They’re just bad company.’
‘Bad company don’t matter to me. Won’t change me, will it? I’m bad already. Bad inside. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve been and done. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve been bad again. I’m just not strong enough to say no—’
Suddenly, too late, I understood the real reason for the fear on Alice’s face. It wasn’t me she was scared of. It was what was standing right behind me.