A New Darkness

by Joseph Delaney

  “Just north of Grimsargh.”

  Grimsargh was about five miles south of the Long Ridge, so we could get there and back long before nightfall. It would make for a pleasant stroll, and I wanted to get this done before starting Jenny’s training.

  As we walked, I thought over what I might have gotten myself into. Taking Jenny on as my apprentice would change my life significantly. It would end my loneliness, true, but on the other hand, it would mean a lot of extra work and responsibility.

  It was late morning when we arrived. Jenny’s parents’ home was a typical gray stone farm laborer’s cottage, with small windows and a front door that led straight into the narrow front room.

  I was going to knock, but Jenny walked straight in, and so I followed. It was gloomy inside, with a small fire flickering in the grate and a man and a woman sitting very close to it. The man was warming his hands. He was bald but for tufts of white hair over each ear. The woman wore a bonnet that looked none too clean, and her hands were wrinkled and covered with bulging blue veins. Both were getting on in years.

  “Mam! Dad!” Jenny said without any preamble. “This is Master Ward, the Chipenden Spook. He’s going to take me on as his apprentice.”

  Jenny’s dad didn’t even turn to acknowledge me. He just carried on warming his hands and staring into the fire. The mother didn’t get up to greet me either, but at least she swiveled her head and met my eye.

  “She’s a wild one, that!” She nodded toward Jenny. “Nearly been the death of me, she has. Goes gallivanting all over the County and never thinks to help her poor old mam and dad. What a worry she’s been. I wish we had a lad, not a mad girl like that.”

  “That’s enough, Mother!” Jenny’s dad rebuked her angrily. He turned in his chair and looked at me for the first time. “Well, Master Ward, let’s get down to business. If you’re going to put her to work, how much will you be paying us for her services?”

  I smiled. “It’s usually the other way round, Mr. Calder,” I explained. “When my own master took me on as his apprentice, my dad paid him two guineas to start with, and another ten after the trial period was over. You see, I’m offering to teach her a trade that will eventually provide her with a good steady livelihood. Not only that . . . her food and accommodation are free. The guineas are just part of the contract and go nowhere near covering the full cost that I’ll be put to.”

  “But she’ll be working hard and making your life easier. There should be some payment for that, or it doesn’t seem right.”

  “It’s the way it’s always been done,” I explained calmly. “At first apprentices can do little to help. Even after several years’ training, they rarely go out on jobs alone.”

  Of course, all I actually knew was John Gregory’s way of doing things, but I wasn’t going to admit as much to this man.

  “Why’s that, then?”

  “Because it’s dangerous work, Mr. Calder,” I replied. “Some creatures from the dark can kill you—especially boggarts.”

  “Boggarts!” he scoffed. “It’s a load o’ rubbish! Ghosts and boggarts—they’re just superstitious stories to frighten fools who’ll pay good money for what you pretend to do. Still, don’t get me wrong, if it makes you a living, I don’t blame you one bit. Folks are gullible, but what you do at least gives ’em peace of mind, I’ll say that for you.”

  I didn’t see any point in arguing with him. Most folk were nervous about spooks, but you met the odd one who didn’t believe in the dark at all. It might be that they lacked sensitivity to the supernatural, but whatever caused them to adopt that attitude, they were sure they were right, and there was no point in trying to convince them otherwise.

  “Your own pa must’ve been rich to afford twelve guineas,” Jenny’s dad grumbled.

  I shook my head. “He wasn’t rich,” I explained. “He was just a hardworking farmer who had to support seven sons.”

  ‘Well, I’m not even a farmer. I just work for farmers, and a poor pittance they pay me. I can tell you that for nought!”

  There was a silence then, and Jenny looked like she wished the floor would open and swallow her up.

  There was a long silence, which I broke with another question.

  “Do your other daughters no longer live at home?” I asked.

  “They were good girls!” piped up Jenny’s mam. “We’d no trouble marrying them off—no trouble at all. Now they both have children of their own.”

  I nodded and forced a smile onto my face, but my heart sank. This contradicted Jenny’s claim to be a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Had she lied to me, assuming that I wouldn’t pay a visit to her family?

  “Both?” I asked. “What about your other daughters, Mrs. Calder?”

  “We don’t have any other daughters. We would have liked more children, but two was all we could manage,” the woman told me. “That’s why we adopted Jenny.”

  I was annoyed. I felt like walking out and heading straight back to Chipenden. But part of me did want to believe Jenny, and if she was adopted, then there was still a chance that she was telling the truth.

  “Who were her parents?”

  “If the Lord knows, he ain’t telling!” she replied. “I found Jenny abandoned in a nettle patch behind the big barn out there. She was screaming fit to wake the dead. Had stings all over her little bum! Even though we were getting on in years, being good-hearted folk and wanting another child, we took her in.”

  I glanced at Jenny, who had blushed a bright red.

  “Of course, she hasn’t turned out quite the way we expected,” the woman continued. “The nettle patch was right at the center of a big pixie circle made of the tallest and brightest yellow buttercups I’d ever seen. That’s supposed to bring good fortune to any who dare enter it. But we’ve seen precious little of that!”

  Pixies and pixie circles were just superstitious nonsense, but I didn’t waste my breath explaining this to her. I’d had enough of the company of this couple. I knew that I was going to have to whistle for my guineas. In any case, they were probably too poor to make more than a token contribution to the cost of training Jenny.

  “Well, I’ll have to consider the situation,” I said. “Jenny has to take a test first, to see if she’s fit to become my apprentice. If she passes, I might call back to see you again.”

  That was the end of the conversation, and after bidding them farewell, I began to walk slowly away from the cottage, Jenny following behind.

  “You lied to me,” I said accusingly. “Are you actually a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter?”

  “Of course I am!” she protested.

  “How can you make such a claim?” I snapped. “You don’t even know who your real parents were.”

  “My real dad and mam are both dead. But I know who my mam was,” Jenny said, hanging her head. “And I know that I’ve six sisters.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you know who your mam is, but your foster parents don’t?”

  “Yes. My real mother came to see me about three years ago. She explained why she’d abandoned me.”

  I stared hard at Jenny. Was she telling the truth?

  “So why did she?”

  “Because my dad had died suddenly and she was living in poverty with too many mouths to feed and no hope of things getting better. She was too proud to ask anyone to adopt me. So she left me somewhere I’d be found.”

  “Why did she seek you out after all that time?”

  “Because she was dying. The doctor had given her only weeks to live. She came to tell me that I was a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. She did it so I’d be ready when I started to see the dead. She was a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter too, and she hadn’t been prepared for what had happened. It almost drove her insane, so she came to tell me what to expect.”

  “I saw the dead from a very early age,” I told her. “You’re fifteen now, so you must have been twelve when your mother came to see you. All those years, and nothing unusual had h
appened?”

  “I heard a few whispers in the dark, and once something touched me with a cold finger, but I just put it down to my imagination. My real mam said things don’t start to happen until you’re at least thirteen. Perhaps it’s different for a seventh son.”

  I nodded. That was a possibility . . . but I still needed to be sure. If Jenny’s mother had died, maybe I could talk to her other daughters, to check that Jenny was telling the truth. I was finding this hard. I had nobody I could ask for advice. “So what was your mother’s name, and where did she live?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me her name or where she lived.”

  I sighed in exasperation. If the girl was telling the truth, then discovering the whereabouts of her blood sisters would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The family home would now be occupied by someone else, and Jenny’s older sisters would no doubt have families of their own.

  Could I trust her? I wondered.

  I shrugged. I was about to find out. We’d go and do the test now. If Jenny truly was a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, she would pass the haunted-house test. While some who entered that house might just feel uneasy, thinking they were being watched or hearing a few raps, a seventh son of a seventh son would be receptive to the full ghast experience there. If she really did have similar powers, it would be the same for her.

  “We’ll head for Horshaw,” I told her. “I’m going to give you the same test that my master gave me and all his other apprentices.”

  “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it,” Jenny said, “but I’ll do my best. Whatever I face can’t be as bad as being in the tree hanging by my feet with that beast drinking my blood and biting me.”

  She was certainly correct there, but in the tree she had been tied up and in no position to run. First of all, I needed to know if she could hear the ghasts. And second, if she would simply run. It was no good taking on an apprentice who fled at the first sign of danger.

  10

  The Haunted House

  I handed Jenny my bag. “You’ll be carrying this from now on,” I told her. “It’s one of the jobs apprentices have to do.”

  I was quite capable of carrying my own bag, but I was following in my master’s footsteps, upholding the traditions that he’d learned from his own master, Henry Horrocks.

  She smiled, but then pulled a face when she felt its weight. “What’s inside this—the kitchen sink?” she asked. “When do I get my own bag and a staff?”

  “Pass the test, and I’ll give you a temporary staff until we get a chance to have one made for you. . . . By the way,” I said mischievously, “a spook reserves the right to give his apprentice a new name. So which one would you prefer? I have three: Pixie, Buttercup, or Nettle?”

  She didn’t reply. Obviously she didn’t appreciate my sense of humor.

  So I made my expression stern. “Now come on—follow me and don’t dawdle. We’ve quite a few miles to cover before sunset.”

  Jenny gave me a hard stare, and a look of annoyance flickered across her face. She was proud, and no doubt didn’t like being spoken to like that. But she didn’t say anything. I realized I’d told her not to dawdle—and that made me smile to myself. It was one of the expressions that John Gregory had always used.

  Of course Jenny didn’t see my smile. I’d set off at a furious pace, leaving her stumbling along several steps behind. That was another thing my master always used to do. Maybe he did it to set an example when he was in a hurry, but it certainly made it hard to keep up when carrying a heavy bag. I knew that only too well.

  I had done these things almost without thinking, following my master’s lead. But I knew that I would have to find my own way of working. I suspected that it was always hardest with the first apprentice. After that, it would become progressively easier.

  Or at least I hoped so!

  We reached the pit village of Horshaw just as it was getting dark. I had adjusted my pace from time to time to ensure that we arrived at dusk. I’m sure that’s what John Gregory used to do with each of the apprentices he tested.

  I could see a slag heap on the hill overlooking the town—that, and a big wooden wheel hooped with metal. The latter was used to control the descent of a wooden platform down a vertical shaft. This took miners down to the coal face to begin their work. When my master had brought me here, we’d passed a line of miners heading up the hill for the night shift. They’d stopped their singing on seeing a spook and his apprentice and had even crossed to the other side to avoid us.

  Tonight, though, the narrow, cobbled streets were deserted, and soon we reached the bottom of the hill, turning in to a deserted lane with broken and boarded windows. It was a place I remembered well, but the last time I’d seen it, a sign hanging by a single rusty rivet proclaimed it to be Watery Lane. Now the sign was gone.

  The terraced house on the corner, the nearest to an abandoned corn merchant’s warehouse, was our destination. Its number, 13, was nailed to the door.

  “This is the place,” I told Jenny as I inserted the key into the lock.

  Once inside, I lit a candle and handed it to the girl. Nothing within the small living room had changed. It was empty—there was only a pile of dirty straw on the flagged floor near the window. The curtains were yellow and tattered, the whole room full of cobwebs.

  Jenny put my bag down on the floor and stared about her with wide eyes.

  Suddenly a chill ran down my spine—the warning that a seventh son of a seventh son receives when something from the dark is close. Soon the ghasts would be active. Would Jenny be able to see and hear them? Would she be brave enough to face those terrible entities?

  I pointed to the inner door, which was partly open. “That’s the kitchen, and to the right there are stone steps leading down to the cellar.”

  I remembered descending those steps, struggling to be brave, readying myself for what might be waiting in the darkness of the cellar below.

  “You can tell the time by the bell you’ll hear chiming from the church tower,” I continued. “What you have to do is simple. Go down to the cellar at midnight and face what’s lurking there. Do that, Jenny, and I’ll take you on as my apprentice for at least a month. This is a test of your courage when faced with the dark. Understand?”

  She nodded, but she didn’t look happy. She was shivering, all her earlier cockiness gone. It was chilly in the room, but was she trembling with cold or with fear? I couldn’t tell, but I remembered all too well the terror I’d felt at being left alone in that house. It was only natural.

  Then I recalled what else the Spook had told me. I gave Jenny the same advice now.

  “Don’t open the front door to anyone,” I continued. “You may hear a loud knocking, but resist the temptation to answer it. That’s one thing you mustn’t do.”

  I knew what lay out there—the ghast that walked the street was even more dangerous than the two in the house. The Spook had told me about it the day after our visit here. There had been an old woman, a “rouser” paid by mine workers to wake them for their shift by rapping on their doors. But she used to creep into the houses and steal things. One day one of the householders caught her at it. She stabbed him to death and was hanged for the crime. Now, after dark, the ghast haunted the street, still trying to trick its way into the houses.

  It fed on fear, but of course it couldn’t actually kill you. Though if you gave in to your terror, it could drive you to the edge of insanity.

  Jenny was strong-minded. I felt confident that she would survive such an encounter. I hoped she wouldn’t open the door anyway.

  “Whatever you do, don’t let the candle go out,” I continued.

  My candle had gone out, but luckily I’d had a tinderbox in my pocket, a parting gift from Dad when I left home to become the Spook’s new apprentice. Jenny wouldn’t be able to light her candle again. So, in a sudden impulse of generosity, I pulled my tinderbox from my bag and held it out to her.

  “Here. You can borrow this,�
� I said. “Take care of it; it was a present from my dad and has sentimental value.” Then, without another word, I went out through the front door, leaving her alone in the haunted house.

  I knew what to do next. Long after my test, my master had told me what he routinely did with each apprentice: went round to the back door, slipped into the kitchen, and crept down the steps to the cellar.

  So that’s what I did. A couple of minutes later I was crouching down there in the dark with my back against a barrel. All I had to do was wait for Jenny. She had to come down to the cellar at midnight. Once she’d done that, I would stand up and tell her she’d passed the test. But first she would have to withstand a few very unpleasant experiences.

  The house was haunted by ghasts, not ghosts, so the manifestations weren’t aware of their surroundings. They were dark fragments of suffering spirits left behind when their larger selves had escaped to the light. They played over and over again the part of their lives that had resulted in trauma—as the girl would soon find out.

  I waited. I hoped again that Jenny would have the sense to obey me and wouldn’t open the front door to the more dangerous ghast. It had tried to trick me into doing so by using Mam’s voice, plucking it from my mind and imitating it perfectly. I’d managed to resist the impulse to respond to it, but I wondered what voice the ghast would use to lure Jenny. No doubt someone from her past whom she liked and trusted. I suspected that if the girl did open the door, she’d be faced by something horrible—an old lady wielding a blade, with murder in her eyes.

  Soon the ghasts of the main house began to make themselves known.

  It started in the far corner of the cellar. I heard a rhythmic digging: the sound of heavy, damp earth being turned with a spade. There was a soft squelching as the spade lifted the soil from the cellar floor. The chill that came from being close to something from the dark intensified, and though I knew it would be far worse for the girl, I reflected that I’d be heartily glad when this was all over. I wasn’t scared, but it was unpleasant.

  The ghast was digging a grave, and it had a terrible story. It belonged to a miner who’d grown jealous, thinking that his wife was secretly seeing another man. One night, in a fit of rage, he killed her, striking her on the head with a big cob of coal, and had dug her grave down here in this cellar. But, even worse, she wasn’t actually dead when he’d put her in the grave. He’d buried her alive. And then he’d killed himself.