“Now, as for the third clan, the Mouldheels, they’re much more mysterious. In addition to using blood and bone magic, they pride themselves on being skilled with mirrors. As I’ve told you before, I don’t believe in prophecy, but it’s said that the Mouldheels mainly use mirrors for scrying.”
“Scrying?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“Telling the future, lad. They say the mirrors show them what’s going to happen. Now, the Mouldheels have mostly kept their distance from the other two clans, but recently I’ve heard that someone or something is keen for them to put aside that ancient enmity. And that’s what we have to prevent. Because if the three clans unite and, more importantly, if they get three covens together, then who knows what evil they will launch upon the County? As you may remember, they did it once before, many years ago, and cursed me.”
“I remember you telling me,” I said. “But I thought you didn’t believe in their curse.”
“No, I like to think it was all nonsense, but it still shook me up. Luckily the covens fell out soon after, before they could inflict more damage on the County. But this time there’s something a little more sinister about what’s happening in Pendle, and that’s what I need my visitor to confirm. We need to prepare ourselves mentally and physically for what could be a terrible battle—and then we need to get to Pendle before it’s too late.
“Well, lad,” the Spook finished, shielding his eyes and glancing toward the sun, “this lesson’s gone on long enough, so it’s back to the house with you. You can spend the rest of the morning studying.”
I passed the remainder of the morning alone in the Spook’s library. He still didn’t trust Alice fully, and she wasn’t allowed in the library in case she read something she wasn’t supposed to. Now that there were three of us living in the house, my master had finally opened up another of the downstairs rooms, and it was currently used as a study. Alice was working there now, earning her keep by copying one of the Spook’s books. Some of them were rare and he was always afraid that something might happen to them, so he liked to have a copy just in case.
I was studying covens—how a group of thirteen witches came together for their rituals. I was reading a passage that described what happened when witches held special feasts, which were called sabbaths.
Some covens celebrate sabbaths weekly, others each month, at the time of either the full moon or the new moon. Additionally, there are four great sabbaths held when the power of darkness is at its greatest: Candlemas, Walpurgis Night, Lammas and Halloween. At these four dark feasts, covens may combine in worship.
I already knew about Walpurgis Night. It took place on April 30, and years earlier three covens had gathered together at Pendle on that sabbath to curse the Spook. Well, we were now in the second week in July; I wondered when the next great sabbath was and began to search the page. I didn’t get very far because at that moment something happened that I’d never experienced in the whole of my time in Chipenden.
Rap! Rap! Rap! Rap!
Someone was knocking on the back door! I couldn’t believe it. Nobody came to the house. Visitors always went to the withy trees at the crossroads and rang the bell. To enter the gardens was to risk being torn to bits by the boggart that guarded the house and its perimeter. Who had knocked? Was it the friend the Spook was expecting? And if so, how had he managed to reach the back door in one piece?
CHAPTER II
Theft and Kidnapping
CURIOUS, I returned my book to its place on the shelf and went downstairs. The Spook had already answered the door and was leading someone into the kitchen. When I saw him, my jaw dropped in surprise. He was a very big man, broad across the shoulders and at least two or three inches taller than the Spook. He had a friendly, honest face and looked to be in his late thirties, but the truly astonishing thing about him was that he was wearing a black cassock.
He was a priest!
“This is my apprentice, Tom Ward,” said the Spook with a smile.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Tom,” said the priest, holding out his hand. “I’m Father Stocks. My parish is Downham, north of Pendle Hill.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, too,” I said, shaking his hand.
“John has told me all about you in his letters,” Father Stocks said. “It seems you’ve gotten yourself off to a very promising start—”
At that moment Alice came into the kitchen. She looked our visitor up and down with surprise in her eyes when she saw that he was a priest. In turn, Father Stocks glanced down at her pointy shoes and his eyebrows gave a slight twitch upward.
“And this is young Alice,” said the Spook. “Alice, say hello to Father Stocks.”
Alice nodded and gave the priest a little smile.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, too, Alice,” he said. “I believe you’ve family in Pendle—”
“Blood ties, that’s all,” replied Alice with a fierce frown. “My mam was a Malkin and my dad was a Deane. Ain’t my fault where I was born. None of us choose our kin.”
“That’s very true,” said the priest in a kindly voice. “I’m sure the world would be a very different place if we could. But it’s the way we live our lives that counts.”
Not much more was said after that. The priest was tired after his journey, and it was clear that the Spook wanted us on our way to Jack’s farm, so we made our preparations to leave. I didn’t bother with my bag, but just took my staff and a lump of cheese for us to eat on the journey.
The Spook walked us to the door. “Here’s what you’ll need to hire the cart,” he said, handing me a small silver coin.
“How did Father Stocks manage to get past the boggart and cross the garden safely?” I asked as I put it into the pocket of my breeches.
The Spook smiled. “He’s crossed this garden many times before, lad, and the boggart knows him well. Father Stocks was once my apprentice. And a very successful one, I may add—he completed his time. But later he thought better of it and decided that the Church was his true vocation. He’s a useful man to know—he has two trades at his fingertips: the priesthood and ours. Add that to his background knowledge of Pendle, and we couldn’t have a better ally.”
As we set off for my brother Jack’s farm, the sun was shining, the birds were singing; it was a perfect summer afternoon. I had Alice for company, and I was going home. Not only that: I was looking forward to seeing little Mary, Jack, and his wife Ellie, who was expecting another baby. Mam had predicted that it would be the son that Jack had always wanted, someone to inherit the farm after he was dead. So I should have been happy. But as we drew closer to the farm, I couldn’t shake off a feeling of sadness, which was slowly settling over me like a black cloud.
Dad was dead, and there’d be no Mam to greet me. It was never going to feel like my real home again. That was the stark truth, and I still hadn’t fully come to terms with it.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Alice said.
I shrugged.
“Come on, cheer up, Tom. How many times do I have to tell you? We should make the best of it. Off to Pendle I reckon we’ll be next week.”
“Sorry, Alice. I’m just thinking about Mam and Dad. Can’t seem to get them out of my mind.”
Alice moved closer to my side and gave my hand an affectionate squeeze. “It’s hard, Tom, I know. But I’m sure you’ll see your mam again one day. Anyway, aren’t you looking forward to finding out what’s in those trunks she’s left you?”
“I’m curious, yes, I won’t deny that. . . .”
“This is a nice spot,” said Alice, pointing to the side of the path. “I’m feeling peckish. Let’s eat.”
We sat down on a grassy bank under the shade of a massive oak tree and shared out the cheese we’d brought for the journey. We were both hungry, so we ate it all. I wasn’t on spook’s business, so there was no need to fast. We could live off the land.
It was as if Alice had read my thoughts. “I’ll catch us a couple of juicy rabbits at dusk,” she promised with
a smile.
“That would be nice. You know, Alice,” I said, “you’ve told me a lot about witches in general, but very little about Pendle and the witches who live there. Why’s that? Reckon I’ll need to know as much as possible if we’re heading there.”
Alice frowned. “I’ve lots of painful memories of that place. Don’t like to talk about my family. Don’t like to talk about Pendle much—the thought of going back there scares me.”
“It’s funny,” I said, “but Mr. Gregory’s never talked much about Pendle either. You’d think we’d have been discussing and planning what it’s like and what we’re going to do when we get there.”
“Always likes to play things close to his chest, he does. He must have some sort of plan. I’m sure he’ll share it with us when the time’s right. Imagine Old Gregory having a friend!” said Alice, changing the subject. “A friend who’s a priest as well!”
“What I can’t understand is why someone would give up being a spook to become a priest.”
Alice laughed at that. “No stranger than Old Gregory being a priest and giving it up to become a spook!”
She was right—the Spook had been trained as a priest—and I laughed with her. But my opinion hadn’t changed. As far as I could see, priests prayed and that was it. They didn’t do anything directly to deal with the dark. They lacked the practical knowledge of our craft. It seemed to me that Father Stocks had taken a step in the wrong direction.
A little before dusk we stopped again and settled ourselves down in a hollow between two hills, close to the edge of a wood. The sky was clear, with the waning moon visible to the southeast. I busied myself making a fire while Alice went hunting for rabbits. Within an hour she was cooking them over the fire, the juice dribbling and hissing into the flames while my mouth watered.
I was still curious about Pendle, and despite Alice’s reluctance to talk about her life there, I decided to try again.
“Come on, Alice,” I said. “I know it’s painful for you to talk about, but I do need to know more about Pendle. . . .”
“I suppose so,” Alice said, peering at me over the flames. “Best that you’re prepared for the worst. Ain’t a nice place to be. And everybody’s scared. Whichever village you visit, you can see it in their faces. Can’t blame ’em, because the witches know almost everything that’s going on. After dark, most ordinary folk turn the mirrors in their houses to the wall.”
“Why?” I asked.
“So they can’t be spied on. Nobody trusts a mirror at night. Witches, specially the Mouldheels, use them to spy on folks. They love to use ’em for scrying and spying. In Pendle you never know who or what might suddenly peer out at you from a mirror. Remember old Mother Malkin? That should give you some idea of the sort of witch we’ll be facing.”
The name Malkin sent a chill through my bones. Mother Malkin had been the most evil witch in the County, and a year earlier, with Alice’s help, I’d managed to destroy her. But not before she’d threatened the lives of Jack and his family.
“Even though she’s gone now, in Pendle there’s always someone else ready to step into the shoes of a dead witch,” Alice said grimly. “And there are plenty of Malkins capable of that. Some of ’em live in Malkin Tower, which ain’t a place to go anywhere near after dark. People who go missing in Pendle—that’s where they mostly end up. There are tunnels, pits, and dungeons under the tower, full of the bones of those they’ve murdered.”
“Why isn’t something done?” I asked. “What about the high sheriff at Caster? Can’t he do anything?”
“Sent justices and constables to Pendle before, he has. Lots of times. Not that it did much good. Mostly they hanged the wrong people. Old Hannah Fairborne was one. She was nearly eighty when they dragged her off to Caster in chains. Said she was a witch, but that wasn’t true. Still, she deserved to hang because she poisoned three of her nephews. Lots of that goes on in Pendle. It ain’t a good place to be. And it ain’t easy to sort things out there. That’s why Old Gregory’s left it so long.”
I nodded in agreement.
“I know more than most what it’s like to live there,” Alice continued. “There’ve been lots of unions between Malkins and Deanes, even though they’re rivals. Truth is, the Malkins and Deanes hate the Mouldheels a lot more than they do each other. Life in Pendle is complicated. Lived there most of my life but still don’t understand ’em.”
“Were you happy?” I asked. “I mean, before you were looked after by Bony Lizzie?”
Alice grew silent and avoided my gaze, and I realized that I shouldn’t have asked. She’d never talked much about life with her parents or with Lizzie after they’d died.
“Don’t remember life much before Lizzie,” she said at last. “I mostly remember the rows. Me lying there in the darkness crying while my mam and dad fought like cat and dog. But sometimes they talked and laughed as well, so it wasn’t all bad. That was the big difference afterward. The silence. Lizzie didn’t say much. More likely to give me a clout round the head than a kind word. Brooded a lot, she did. Gazed into the fire and muttered her spells. And if she weren’t gawping into the flames, she’d be staring into a mirror. Sometimes I caught sight of things over her shoulder. Things that don’t belong on this earth. Scared me, it did. Preferred Mam and Dad’s fights to that.”
“Did you live in Malkin Tower?”
Alice shook her head. “No. Only the Malkin coven and a few chosen helpers live in the tower itself. But I went there sometimes with my mam. Some of it’s underground, but I never went down there. They all live together in one big room, and there was lots of arguing and screaming and smoke stinging your eyes. Being a Deane, my dad didn’t visit the tower. He’d never have got out alive. We lived in a cottage near Roughlee, the village where most of the Deanes live. The Mouldheels live in Bareleigh and the rest of the Malkins in Goldshaw Booth. Mostly keep to their own territory, they do.”
After that Alice grew silent, so I didn’t press her further. I could see that Pendle held a lot of painful memories for her—unspoken horrors that I could only guess at.
Jack’s nearest neighbor, Mr. Wilkinson, had a horse and cart, and I knew he’d be only too happy to hire them out. No doubt he’d have one of his sons drive us so I wouldn’t have to make a return journey later. I decided to call in at my brother’s first to let him know what I intended to do with the trunks.
We made good time and came within sight of Jack’s farm late in the afternoon of the following day. My first glance told me that something was badly wrong.
We’d approached from the northeast, skirting the edge of Hangman’s Hill, and as we began our descent, I could see right away that there were no animals in the fields. Then, as I caught sight of the farmhouse, it got worse. The barn was a blackened ruin: It had been burned to the ground.
It never even crossed my mind to ask Alice to wait at the farm boundary. Something bad had happened, and all I could think of was checking that Jack, Ellie, and their daughter, Mary, were all right. By now the farm dogs should have been barking, but everything was silent.
As we hastened through the gate and across the yard, I saw that the back door of the farmhouse had been smashed in and was hanging from one hinge. I ran across, with Alice at my heels, a lump in my throat, afraid that something terrible had happened.
Once inside, I called Jack’s and Ellie’s names over and over again but received no answer. The house was unrecognizable as the home I’d been brought up in. All the kitchen drawers had been pulled out and there was cutlery and smashed crockery on the flags. The pots of herbs had been taken from the windowsill and thrown against the walls; there was soil in the sink. The brass candlestick had gone from the table and in its place were five empty bottles of elderberry wine from Mam’s store in the cellar. But for me, the worst thing of all was Mam’s rocking chair, which was in big, jagged pieces, as if someone had taken an ax to it. It pained me to see that. It almost felt like they’d hurt Mam.
Upstairs, the bedrooms
had been ransacked—clothes scattered across the beds and floors and every mirror smashed. But the scariest moment of all came when we reached Mam’s special room. The door was closed, but there was blood splattered across the wall next to it, and there were bloodstains on the floorboards, too. Had Jack and his family been here when this happened?
I became filled with a terrible dread that someone had died here.
“Don’t think the worst, Tom!” Alice said, gripping my arm. “It may not be as bad as it seems. . . . ”
I didn’t answer, just kept staring at the splatters of blood on the walls.
“Let’s look inside your mam’s room,” Alice suggested.
For a moment I looked at her, horrified. I couldn’t believe that was all she could think about now.
“I think we should look inside,” she insisted.
Angrily I tried the door but it didn’t yield. “It’s still locked, Alice. I’ve got the only key. So nobody’s been inside.”
“Trust me, Tom. Please . . .”
For safety, I kept the keys on a piece of string round my neck. There was a large key for the door and three smaller ones for the three largest trunks inside. In a moment I’d opened the door and stepped inside. Additionally, I had a key made by the Spook’s brother, Andrew, who’s a locksmith, and it will open most locks without trouble.
I’d been wrong. Somebody had been in the room. It was completely empty. The three big trunks and the smaller chests were gone.
“How could they get into the room?” I asked, my voice echoing slightly. “I have the only key.”
Alice shook her head. “Remember the other thing your mam said: that nothing evil could enter here. Well, something evil’s been here and that’s for sure!”
I certainly did remember what Mam had said. It had been on my final visit to the farm when I saw her for the last time. She’d stood in this very room, talking to Alice and me, and I remembered her words exactly.
The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Page 66