“Do I really have to dig another boggart pit?” I asked wearily.
The Spook gave me a withering look until I dropped my eyes, feeling very uncomfortable.
“Think you’re above all that now, lad?” he asked. “Well, you’re not, so don’t get complacent! You’ve still a lot to learn. You may have bound your first boggart, but you’d good men helping. One day you might have to dig the pit yourself and do it fast in order to save a life.”
After digging the pit and coating it with salt and iron, I had to practice getting the bait dish down into the pit without spilling a single drop of blood. Of course, because it was only part of my training, we used water rather than blood, but the Spook took it very seriously and usually got annoyed if I didn’t manage to do it first time. But on this occasion he didn’t get the chance. I’d managed it at Horshaw and I was just as good in practice, succeeding ten times in a row. Despite that, the Spook didn’t give me one word of praise, and I was starting to feel a bit annoyed.
Next came one practical I really enjoyed—using the Spook’s silver chain. There was a six-foot post set up in the western garden, and the idea was to cast the chain over it. The Spook made me stand at various distances from it and practice for over an hour at a time, keeping in mind that at some point it might be a real witch I’d be facing, and if I missed, I wouldn’t get another chance. There was a special way to use the chain. You coiled it over your left hand and cast it with a flick of your wrist so that it spun widdershins, falling in a left-handed spiral to enclose the post and tighten against it. From a distance of eight feet I could now get the chain over the post nine times out of ten, but as usual, the Spook was grudging with his praise.
“Not bad, I suppose,” he said. “But don’t get smug, lad. A real witch won’t oblige you by standing still while you throw that chain. By the end of the year I’ll expect ten out of ten and nothing less!”
I felt more than a bit annoyed at that. I’d been working hard and had improved a lot. Not only that, I’d just bound my first boggart and done it without any help from the Spook. It made me wonder if he’d done any better during his own apprenticeship!
In the afternoon the Spook allowed me into his library to work by myself, reading and making notes, but he only let me read certain books. He was very strict about that. I was still in my first year, so boggarts were my main area of study. But sometimes, when he was off doing something else, I couldn’t help having a glance at some of his other books, too.
So, after reading my fill of boggarts, I went to the three long shelves near the window and chose one of the large leather-bound notebooks from the very top shelf. They were diaries, some of them written by spooks hundreds of years ago. Each one covered a period of about five years.
This time I knew exactly what I was looking for. I chose one of the Spook’s earliest diaries, curious to see how he’d coped with the job as a young man and whether he’d shaped up better than me. Of course, he’d been a priest before training to be a spook, so he’d have been really old for an apprentice.
Anyway, I picked a few pages at random and started to read. I recognized his handwriting, of course, but a stranger reading an extract for the first time wouldn’t have guessed the Spook had written it. When he talks, his voice is typical County, down to earth and without a hint of what my dad calls airs and graces. When he writes, it’s different. It’s as if all those books he’s read have altered his voice, whereas I mostly write the way I talk: If my dad were ever to read my notes, he’d be proud of me and know I was still his son.
At first what I read didn’t seem any different from the Spook’s more recent writings, apart from the fact that he made more mistakes. As usual, he was very honest, and each time explained just how he’d gone wrong. As he was always telling me, it was important to write everything down and so learn from the past.
He described how, one week, he’d spent hours and hours practicing with the bait dish and his master had gotten angry because he couldn’t manage a better average than eight out of ten! That made me feel a lot better. And then I came to something that lifted my spirits even further. The Spook hadn’t bound his first boggart until he’d been an apprentice for almost eighteen months. What’s more, it had only been a hairy boggart, not a dangerous ripper!
That was the best I could find to cheer me up: Clearly the Spook had been a good, hard-working apprentice. A lot of what I found was routine, so I skipped through the pages quickly until I reached the point when my master became a spook, working on his own. I’d seen all I really needed to see and was just about to close the book when something caught my eye. I flipped back to the start of the entry just to make sure, and this is what I read. It’s not exactly word for word, but I have a good memory and it’s pretty close. And after reading what he’d written, I certainly wasn’t going to forget it.
Late in the autumn I journeyed far to the north of the County, summoned there to deal with an abhuman, a creature who had brought terror to the district for far too long. Many families in the locality had suffered at its cruel hands and there had been many deaths and maimings.
I came down into the forest at dusk. All the leaves had fallen and were rotten and brown on the ground, and the tower was like a black demon finger pointing at the sky. A girl had been seen waving from its solitary window, beckoning frantically for aid. The creature had seized her for its own and now held her as its plaything, imprisoning her within those dank stone walls.
Firstly I made a fire and sat gazing into its flames while gathering my courage. Taking the whetstone from my bag, I sharpened my blade until my fingers could not touch its edge without yielding blood. Finally, at midnight, I went to the tower and hammered out a challenge upon the door with my staff.
The creature came forth brandishing a great club and roared out in anger. It was a foul thing, dressed in the skins of animals, reeking of blood and animal fat, and it attacked me with terrible fury.
At first I retreated, waiting my chance, but the next time it hurled itself at me I released the blade from its recess in my staff and, using all my strength, drove it deep into its head. It fell stone dead at my feet, but I had no regrets at taking its life, for it would have killed again and again and would never have been sated.
It was then that the girl called out to me, her siren voice luring me up the stone steps. There, in the topmost room of the tower, I found her upon a bed of straw, bound fast with a long silver chain. With skin like milk and long fair hair, she was by far the prettiest woman that my eyes had ever seen. Her name was Meg, and she pleaded to be released from the chain. Her voice was so persuasive that my reason fled and the world spun about me.
No sooner had I unbound her from the coils of the chain than she fastened her lips hard upon mine own. And so sweet were her kisses that I almost swooned away in her arms.
I awoke with sunlight streaming through the window and saw her clearly for the first time. She was one of the lamia witches, and the mark of the snake was upon her. Fair of face though she was, her spine was covered with green-and-yellow scales.
Full of anger at her deceit, I bound her again with the chain and carried her at last to the pit at Chipenden. When I released her, she struggled so hard that I barely overcame her, and I was forced to pull her by her long hair through the trees while she ranted and screamed fit to wake the dead. It was raining hard and she slipped on the wet grass, but I carried on dragging her along the ground, though her bare arms and legs were scratched by brambles. It was cruel, but it had to be done.
But when I started to tip her over the edge into the pit, she clutched at my knees and began to sob pitifully. I stood there for a long time, full of anguish, about to topple over the edge myself, until at last I made a decision that I may come to regret.
I helped her to her feet and wrapped my arms about her, and we both wept. How could I put her into the pit, when I realized that I loved her better than my own soul?
I begged her forgiveness, and then we turned together a
nd, hand in hand, walked away from the pit.
From this encounter I have gained a silver chain, an expensive tool that otherwise would have taken many long months of hard work to acquire. What I have lost, or might yet lose, I dare not think about. Beauty is a terrible thing; it binds a man tighter than a silver chain about a witch.
I couldn’t believe what I’d just read! The Spook had warned me about pretty women more than once, but here he’d broken his own rule! Meg was a witch, and yet he hadn’t put her into the pit!
I quickly leafed through the rest of the notebook, expecting to find another reference to her, but there was nothing—nothing at all! It was as if she’d ceased to exist.
I knew quite a bit about witches, but had never heard of a lamia witch before. So I put the notebook back and searched the next shelf down, where the books were arranged in alphabetical order. I opened the book labeled Witches, but there was no reference to a Meg. Why hadn’t the Spook written about her? What had happened to her? Was she still alive? Still out there, somewhere in the County?
I was really curious, and I had another idea; I pulled a big book out from the lowest shelf. This was entitled The Bestiary and was an alphabetical listing of all sorts of creatures, witches included. At last I found the entry I wanted: lamia witches.
It seemed that lamia witches weren’t native to the County but came from lands across the sea. They shunned sunlight, but at night they preyed upon men and drank their blood. They were shape-shifters and belonged to two different categories: the feral and the domestic.
The feral were lamia witches in their natural state, dangerous and unpredictable and with little physical resemblance to humans. All had scales rather than skin and claws rather than fingernails. Some scuttled across the ground on all fours, while others had wings and feathers on their upper bodies and could fly short distances.
But a feral lamia could become a domestic lamia by closely associating with humans. Very gradually, it took a woman’s form and looked human but for a narrow line of green-and-yellow scales that could still be found on its back, running the length of its spine. Domestic lamias had even been known to grow to share human beliefs. Often they ceased to be malevolent and became benign, working for the good of others.
So had Meg eventually become benign? Had the Spook been right not to bind her in the pit?
Suddenly I realized how late it was, and I ran out of the library to my lesson, my head whirling. A few minutes later my master and I were out on the edge of the western garden, under the trees with a clear view of the fells, the autumn sun dropping toward the horizon. I sat on the bench as usual, busy making notes while the Spook paced back and forth dictating. But I couldn’t concentrate.
We started with a Latin lesson. I had a special notebook to write down the grammar and new vocabulary the Spook taught me. There were a lot of lists, and the book was almost full.
I wanted to confront the Spook with what I’d just read, but how could I? I’d broken a rule myself by not keeping to the books he’d specified. I wasn’t supposed to have been reading his diaries, and now I wished I hadn’t. If I said anything to him about it, I knew he’d be angry.
Because of what I’d read in the library, I found it harder and harder to keep my mind on what he was saying. I was hungry, too, and couldn’t wait until it was supper time. Usually the evenings were mine and I was free to do what I wanted, but today he’d been working me very hard. Still, there was less than an hour before the sun went down and the worst of the lessons were over.
And then I heard a sound that made me groan inside.
It was a bell ringing. Not a church bell. No, this had the higher, thinner note of a much smaller bell—the one that was used by our visitors. Nobody was allowed up to the Spook’s house, so people had to go to the crossroads and ring the bell there to let my master know they needed help.
“Go and see to it, lad,” the Spook said, nodding in the direction of the bell. Generally we would both have gone, but he was still quite weak from his illness.
I didn’t rush. Once out of sight of the house and gardens, I settled down to a stroll. It was too close to dusk to do anything tonight, especially with the Spook still not properly recovered, so nothing would get done until morning anyway. I would bring back an account of the trouble and tell the Spook the details during supper. The later I got back, the less writing there’d be. I’d done enough for one day and my wrist was aching.
Overhung by willow trees, which we in the County call withy trees, the crossroads was a gloomy place even at noon, and it always made me nervous. For one thing, you never knew who might be waiting there; for another, they almost always had bad news because that’s why they came. They needed the Spook’s help.
This time a lad was waiting there. He wore big miners’ boots and his fingernails were dirty. Looking even more nervous than I felt, he dashed off his tale so quickly that my ears couldn’t keep up and I had to ask him to repeat it. When he left, I set off back toward the house.
I didn’t stroll, I ran.
The Spook was standing by the bench with his head bowed. When I approached, he looked up and his face seemed sad. Somehow I guessed that he knew what I was going to say, but I told him anyway.
“It’s bad news from Horshaw,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’m sorry, but it’s about your brother. The doctor couldn’t save him. He died yesterday morning, just before dawn. The funeral’s on Friday morning.”
The Spook gave a long, deep sigh and didn’t speak for several minutes. I didn’t know what to say so I just kept silent. It was hard to guess what he was feeling. As they hadn’t spoken for more than forty years, they couldn’t have been that close, but the priest was still his brother and the Spook must have had some happy memories of him—perhaps from before they’d quarreled or when they were children.
At last the Spook sighed again and then he spoke.
“Come on, lad,” he said. “We might as well have an early supper.”
We ate in silence. The Spook picked at his food, and I wondered if that was because of the bad news about his brother or because he still hadn’t got his appetite back since being ill. He usually spoke a few words, even if they were just to ask me how the meal was. It was almost a ritual because we had to keep praising the Spook’s pet boggart, which prepared all the meals, or it got sulky. Praise at supper was very important or the bacon would end up burned the following morning.
“It’s a really good hotpot,” I said at last. “I can’t remember when I last tasted one so good.”
The boggart was mostly invisible but sometimes took on the shape of a big ginger cat; if it was really pleased, it would rub itself against my legs under the kitchen table. This time there wasn’t even so much as a faint purr. Either I hadn’t sounded very convincing or it was keeping quiet because of the bad news.
The Spook suddenly pushed his plate away and scratched at his beard with his left hand. “We’re going to Priestown,” he said suddenly. “We’ll set off first thing tomorrow.”
Priestown? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The Spook shunned the place like the plague and had once told me that he would never set foot within its boundaries. He hadn’t explained the reason, and I’d never asked because you could always tell when he didn’t want to explain something. But when we’d been within spitting distance of the coast and needed to cross the River Ribble, the Spook’s hatred of the town had been a real nuisance. Instead of using the Priestown bridge, we’d had to travel miles inland to the next one so that we could steer clear of it.
“Why?” I asked, my voice hardly more than a whisper, wondering if what I was saying might make him angry. “I thought we might be going to Horshaw, for the funeral.”
“We are going to the funeral, lad,” the Spook said, his voice very calm and patient. “My daft brother only worked in Horshaw, but he was a priest: When a priest dies in the County, they take his body back to Priestown and hold a funeral service in the big cathedral there before layin
g his bones to rest in the churchyard.
“So we’re going there to pay our last respects. But that’s not the only reason. I’ve unfinished business in that godforsaken town. Get out your notebook, lad. Turn to a clean page and make this heading . . .”
I hadn’t finished my hotpot, but I did what he asked right away. When he said unfinished business, I knew he meant spook’s business, so I pulled the bottle of ink out of my pocket and placed it on the table next to my plate.
Something clicked in my head. “Do you mean that ripper I bound? Do you think it’s escaped? There just wasn’t time to dig nine feet. Do you think it’s gone to Priestown?”
“No, lad, you did fine. There’s something far worse than that there. That town is cursed! Cursed with something that I last faced over twenty long years ago. It got the better of me then and put me in bed for almost six months. In fact, I almost died. Since then I’ve never been back, but as we’ve a need to visit the place, I might as well attend to that unfinished business. No, it’s not some straightforward ripper that plagues that cursed town. It’s an ancient evil spirit called the Bane, and it’s the only one of its kind. It’s getting stronger and stronger, so something needs to be done and I can’t put it off any longer.”
I wrote Bane at the top of a new page, but then, to my disappointment, the Spook suddenly shook his head and followed that with a big yawn.
“Come to think of it, this’ll save until tomorrow, lad. You’d better finish up your supper. We’ll be making an early start in the morning, so we’d best be off to bed.”
CHAPTER III
The Bane
WE set off soon after dawn, with me carrying the Spook’s heavy bag as usual. But within an hour I realized the journey would take us two days at least. Usually the Spook walked at a tremendous pace, making me struggle to keep up, but he was still weak and kept getting breathless and stopping to rest.
The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Page 20