“We are old enemies,” she said, almost spitting the words out. “And we come from the same land—she from the barbarous north, I from more sophisticated southern climes. And we know each other well. Many times in the past we have struggled against each other. But my chance for revenge has now arrived, and I will prevail despite all that she can do. She is home now, but still exerts her strength against us. You see, we could not go into the room where the trunks were stored. Entry was forbidden to us. She forbade it from afar, weaving her power into a barrier we could not cross. In retaliation we beat your brother until his blood flowed, but he was stubborn, and when that failed to move him, we threatened to hurt his woman and child. At last he did our bidding and went inside to bring forth the trunks. But the room was not kind to him. Perhaps it was because he betrayed you. You see, jealous of your inheritance, he secretly had a copy made when your own key was in his possession. Within minutes of surrendering the trunks into our keeping, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he began to rant and rave. Thus his body lies in chains in a dungeon, but his mind must be in a place more terrible. Do you see the scene now? Is it becoming clearer?”
Before I could reply, Mistress Wurmalde continued, “His wife is there, doing what little she can for him. Sometimes she bathes his brow. At other moments she tries to soothe his dementia with words. And for her it is hard, very hard, because she has deep sorrows of her own. It is bad enough that her young daughter is wasting away before her eyes and screams with night terrors. But even worse is the fact that she has lost her unborn child—the son and heir that your brother wanted so much. I very much doubt if the poor woman can take much more.
“But more can be supplied if that is what is needed to move you. There is a witch called Grimalkin, a cruel assassin that the Malkins sometimes send out against their enemies. She is skilled with weapons, particularly the long blade. She loves her principal work too well. Loves to kill and maim. But there is another skill that delights her sadistic mind. She loves to torture. Loves to inflict pain. Delights in the snip, snip of her scissors. Shall I place your family in her hands? It could be done with a word! So think, boy! Can you allow your family even one more hour of such torment—let alone the day and night you’ve demanded?”
My mind reeled. I remembered the image of the scissors that Grimalkin had carved into the oak tree as a warning. What Wurmalde had described was terrible, and it took all my strength not to rip the keys from my neck and give them to her there and then. But instead I drew in a deep breath and tried to banish what she’d summoned from my mind’s eye. I’d changed a lot in my time as the Spook’s apprentice. In Priestown I’d faced an evil spirit called the Bane and refused its demand for freedom. In Anglezarke I’d confronted Golgoth, one of the old gods, and despite my belief that in doing so I would forfeit both my life and my soul, had refused his demand that I release him from a pentacle. But this was different. Now it was my family being directly threatened, and what had been described brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes.
Despite that, one thing had been at the core of every-thing my master had taught me. I served the County and my first duty was to the people who lived there. To all the people, not just to those I held dear.
“I still need a day and a night to think things through carefully. Give me that time, or the answer is no,” I replied, trying to keep my voice firm.
Mistress Wurmalde hissed through her teeth like a cat. “So you think to buy time, do you, hoping that by tomorrow they’ll be rescued? Think again, boy! Don’t delude yourself. The walls of Malkin Tower are strong indeed. You’d be a fool to place much faith in a few soldiers. Their blood will turn to water and their knees will soon begin to knock in fear. Pendle will swallow them up. It will be as if they’d never existed!”
She stood there, tall and arrogant, radiating malice and sure of her own power. I had no weapons here at my disposal, but they were available in Downham, not that many miles to the north. How would Mistress Wurmalde feel with a silver chain holding her fast, bound tight against her teeth? If I had my way, she’d find that out very soon. But for now I was defenseless. Witches are physically strong. I’d been in the grip of more than one, and Mistress Wurmalde looked powerful enough to seize me and snatch the keys from me by force. I wondered again why she didn’t do so. Or use Tibb to do her dirty work for her.
There was her position to keep up, as Father Stocks had told me. That would explain it in part. She would hope to keep her reputation intact, whatever happened in the next few weeks or days. But could it be something more than that? Maybe she actually couldn’t take the keys from me by force. Maybe I had to give them to her freely or in exchange for something else? Perhaps Mam wielded interdiction even from a distance, forming that barrier of power. It was a faint hope, but one that I clung to desperately.
“A day and a night,” I told Mistress Wurmalde. “I need that time. My answer is the same—”
“Then take it!” she snapped. “And as you deliberate, think how your family are suffering. But you may not leave this house. I cannot allow it. Return to your room. Here you will remain until you surrender the keys.”
“If I don’t go to Malkin Tower, Master Nowell will wonder what’s happened. . . .”
She smiled grimly. “I’ll send word that both you and Father Stocks are indisposed with a fever. Master Nowell will be too busy tomorrow to concern himself with your absence. You’ll be the very least of his worries. No, you must stay here. To attempt to leave without my permission would be very dangerous. This house is guarded by something you certainly wouldn’t wish to meet. You wouldn’t get out alive.”
At that moment there came a sound from somewhere far off. The deep chimes of a clock reverberated through the house. It was midnight. The clock was striking twelve.
“Before this time tomorrow night, you must decide,” Wurmalde warned. “Decide wrongly or fail to give an answer, and your family will die. The choice is yours.”
CHAPTER X
Tibb
I returned to my room and closed the door behind me. I was desperate to escape but afraid to try. All my courage seemed to have fled. Somewhere abroad within the house was Tibb, alert to my every move. I had nothing to defend myself with and suspected that I wouldn’t reach an outer door before he fell upon me.
At first, without even a thought of sleeping, my worries and fears swirling endlessly inside my head, I pulled a chair to the window and peered out into the night. There, bathed in moonlight, the grounds and countryside beyond looked at peace. Occasionally, in addition to the distant snoring of Father Stocks, I could hear faint scratching sounds from out on the landing. It could have been mice. But it could also have been Tibb on the prowl. It made me feel very nervous and uneasy.
I opened the window and looked down at the wall below. It was covered in ivy. Could I escape through the window? Would the ivy bear my weight? I reached down below the sill and clutched the plant, but when I tugged it, leaves and branches came away in my hand. No doubt it was cut back from the windows at least once a year—this would be new growth. Perhaps a little farther down the stems would be thicker and woodier, the ivy’s grip upon the stone wall firmer?
But it was filled with risk. Wurmalde wouldn’t be able to sniff out my bid for freedom; the instant I began my descent, however, Tibb might. I’d have to climb very carefully, and that would take time. The creature would be waiting for me before I reached the ground. If I fell, it would be worse. . . . No, it was too risky. I let the thought seep away as images flooded in to replace it. The cruel pictures Wurmalde had placed in my mind became vivid and almost impossible to dismiss: Jack in torment; Mary screaming in fear, terrified of the dark; poor Ellie, mourning the unborn child she’d lost. The witch assassin, Grimalkin, let loose to inflict further pain. The snip, snip of her scissors . . .
But as the night slowly passed, my anxieties gave way to tiredness. My limbs grew heavy, and I felt the need to lie down on the bed. Like Father Stocks, I didn’t bothe
r to get undressed but simply lay on my back on top of the sheets. At first I didn’t want to fall asleep, but soon my lids grew heavy and my eyes began to close, all my fears and concerns slowly ebbing away.
I reminded myself that Wurmalde had given me a full day and a night to reach a decision. As long as I stayed in the house, nothing would harm me. In the morning I’d be fresh and alert, able to find a way to solve all my problems. All I had to do was relax. . . .
How long I slept I don’t know, but some time later I was awakened suddenly by the sound of someone shouting.
“No! No! Leave me! Let me be! Get off me!”
I heard it as if in a dream. For a few moments I didn’t know where I was and stared up at the ceiling in bewilderment. It was very dark in the room—there was no longer any moonlight to see by. Only slowly did I recognize the voice as that of Father Stocks.
“Oh, God! Oh, God, deliver me!” he cried again, his voice filled with utter terror.
What was the matter with him? What was happening? And then I realized that someone was hurting the priest. Was it the witch or Tibb? I had no weapons and didn’t know what I could do, but I had to try to help him. Yet when I tried to sit up, I lacked the strength. My body felt heavy; my limbs didn’t respond. What was wrong with me? I felt weak and ill.
I hadn’t touched the mutton, so it couldn’t be poison. Was it some sort of spell? I’d been close to Wurmalde. Too close. No doubt she’d used some sort of dark magic against me.
Then I heard Father Stocks begin to pray: “Out of the depths I cry to Thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. . . .”
At first the priest’s voice was clearly audible and punctuated by groans and cries of pain, but gradually it became a faint murmur before fading away altogether.
There was a minute or so of silence, but then I heard scratching sounds outside my bedroom door. Again I tried to sit up. It was useless, but by making a great effort I found that I could move my head a little, and I turned it slightly to the right, so that I could look toward the door.
My eyes were quickly adjusting to the darkness, and I could see enough to tell me that the door was very slightly ajar, hardly more than a crack. But as I watched, in fear and dismay, it slowly began to gape wider, making my heart hammer in my chest. Wider and wider it yawned, the hinges creaking as it slowly opened to its full extent. I gazed toward the deeper darkness beyond it, terrified but expectant. At any moment I would see Tibb enter the room.
I could see nothing at all, but I could hear him—claws scratching and scrabbling, biting into wood. Then I realized that the sound was above, not below me. I looked upward just in time to see a dark shape moving across the ceiling like a spider, to halt directly above my bed. Unable to move anything but my head, I started to take deep breaths, trying to slow my heartbeat. To be afraid made the dark stronger. I had to get my fear under control.
I could see the outline of the four limbs and the body, but the head seemed far closer. I’ve always been able to see well in the dark, and my eyes were continuing to adjust until I could finally make some sense of what threatened from above.
Tibb had crawled across the wooden panels of the ceiling so that his hairy back and limbs were facing away from me. But his head was hanging down backward toward the bed, supported by a long, muscular neck, so that his eyes were below his mouth; and those eyes were glowing slightly in the dark and staring directly toward my own; the mouth was wide open, revealing the sharp needlelike teeth within.
Something dripped onto my forehead then. Something slightly sticky and warm. It seemed to fall from the creature’s open mouth. Twice more drops fell—one onto the pillow beside my head, the next onto my shirtfront. Then Tibb spoke, his voice rasping harshly in the darkness.
“I see your future clearly. Your life will be sad. Your master will be dead and you will be alone. It would be better if you had never been born.”
I didn’t reply, but a calm was settling upon me, my fear receding fast.
“I see a girl, soon to be a woman,” Tibb continued. “The girl who will share your life. She will love you, she will betray you, and finally she will die for you. And it will all have been for nothing. All for nothing in the end. Your mother was cruel. What mother would bring a child into the world for such a hopeless future? What mother would ask you to do what cannot be done? She sings a goat song and places you at its center. Remember my words when you look into the mouth of death.”
“Don’t speak about Mam like that!” I demanded angrily. “You know nothing about her!” But I was baffled by his reference to a goat song. What was that?
Tibb’s response was a snort of laughter, and another bead of moisture fell from his mouth to soil my shirt front.
“I know nothing? How wrong you are. I know more than you. Much, much more than you. More now than you will ever know . . .”
“Then you’ll know what’s in the trunks,” I said softly.
Tibb gave a low growl of anger.
“You can’t see that, can you?” I taunted. “You can’t see everything.”
“You will give us the keys soon, then we will see. Then we will know!”
“I’ll tell you now,” I said. “There’s no need to wait for the keys—”
“Tell me! Tell me!” Tibb demanded.
Suddenly I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I’d no idea at all what I was going to say, but when I spoke, the words came out of my mouth as if uttered by somebody else.
“In the trunks is your death,” I said quietly. “In the trunks is the destruction of the Pendle covens.”
Tibb gave a great roar of anger and bafflement, and for a moment I thought he was about to hurl himself down onto me. But instead I heard the sound of claws cutting into the wooden ceiling panels, and a dark shape moved above me toward the door. Moments later I was alone.
I wanted to get up and go into the next room to see if I could help Father Stocks, but I lacked the strength to do so. I struggled for long hours through the darkness, but was too weak and exhausted to clamber from the bed, and I lay there in thrall to Wurmalde’s power.
Only when the first dawn light illuminated the window did the enchantment fall from my limbs. I managed to sit up and looked down at the pillow. There was a bloodstain on it, two more on the front of my shirt. The blood had dripped from Tibb’s open mouth. He must have been feeding. . . .
Remembering the groans, cries, and prayers from the next bedroom, I rushed out into the corridor. The priest’s bedroom door was ajar. I opened it farther and stepped inside cautiously. The heavy curtains were still closed, the candle had long since burned out, and the room was in near darkness. I could see the shape of Father Stocks lying on the bed, but I couldn’t hear him breathing.
“Father Stocks,” I called, and received a faint answering groan.
“Is that you, Tom?” he said weakly. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Father. What about you?”
“Open the curtains and let in some light. . . .”
So I went to the window and drew back the curtains as he’d asked. The weather had certainly changed for the worse, and the sky was heaped with dark clouds. When I turned back to face Father Stocks, I recoiled in horror. The pillow and top sheet were soaked in blood. I went to the side of the bed and looked down at him, full of pity for his plight.
“Help me, Tom. Help me sit up. . . .”
He gripped my right arm, and I pulled him forward into a sitting position. He groaned in pain. There were beads of sweat on his brow, and he looked very pale. With my left hand I lifted the pillows and positioned them behind his back to offer support.
“Thank you, Tom. Thank you. You’re a good lad,” he said, trying to smile. There was a tremor in his voice, and his breathing was fast and shallow. “Did you see that foul thing? Did it visit you in the night?” he asked.
I nodded. “It came into my room but never touched me. It just talked, that’s all.”
“God be praised for that,” said the priest. “It talked
to me, too, and what a tale it told. You were right about Mistress Wurmalde—I’ve underestimated her. She cares little for her position in this house now. She’s the power behind the Pendle clans, the one who’s trying to unite them. Within a few days this whole district will belong to the Devil himself. Her days of pretending are over, it seems. She’s already managed to unite the Malkins and the Deanes and believes she can persuade the Mouldheels to join them. Then, at Lammas, the three covens will combine to summon the Fiend and bring a new age of darkness to this world.
“When that foul creature finished talking, it dropped down from the ceiling onto my chest. I tried to throw it off, but it fed ravenously and within moments I became as weak as a kitten. I prayed. Prayed harder than I’ve ever done before. I’d like to think that God answered, but in truth I think it only left me when it had drunk its fill.”
“You need a doctor, Father. We need to get you help—”
“No, Tom. No. It’s not a doctor I need. Left alone to rest, my strength would return, but I won’t get the chance. Once it’s dark, that beast will return to feed from me again, and this time I fear I shall die. Oh, Tom!” he said, clutching at my arm, his eyes wide with fear, his whole body trembling. “I’m afraid to die like this, alone in the darkness. I felt as if I was at the bottom of a great pit, with Satan himself pressing me down and stifling my cries so that even God couldn’t hear my prayers. I’m too weak to move, but you’ve got to get away, Tom. I need John Gregory now. Bring John here. He’ll know what to do. He’s the only one who can help me now. . . .”
“Don’t worry, Father,” I told him. “Try to rest. You’ll be safe during the daylight hours. I’ll get away just as soon as I can, and I’ll be back with my master long before dark.”
I returned to my room, wondering about Tibb and the threat he posed to me now. My studies had taught me certain things. Tibb was a creature of the dark, so he might have to hide away during the daylight hours. Even if he could stand daylight, he might not be as dangerous. I’d decided to risk climbing down the ivy, but not until the cart had passed the end of the carriageway. I didn’t want to be seen by Cobden, the driver; even the two bailiffs might be in the pay of Wurmalde.
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