The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection

by Joseph Delaney

  In my right hand I gripped the Spook’s staff; in my left was my silver chain, coiled about my wrist, ready for throwing. I ran on, the blood moon flickering its baleful light through the leaf canopy to my left. I’d almost reached the edge of Hangman’s Wood, but the witch assassin was very close now. I could hear the pad-pad of her feet and the swish-wish of her breath.

  As I ran beyond the final tree, the farm fence directly ahead, the witch sprinted toward me from the right, a dagger in each hand, the long blades reflecting the moon’s red light. I staggered to my left and cracked the chain to send it hurtling at her. But all my training proved useless. I was weary, terrified, and on the verge of despair. The chain fell harmlessly onto the grass. So, exhausted, I finally turned to face the witch.

  It was over, and I knew it. All I had now was the Spook’s staff, but I barely had the strength to lift it. My heart was hammering, my breath rasping, and the world seemed to spin about me.

  Now I could see Grimalkin for the first time. She wore a short black smock tied at her waist, but her skirt was divided and strapped tightly to each thigh to aid running. Her body was crisscrossed with narrow leather straps to which sheaths were bound, each holding a weapon: blades of different lengths; sharp hooks; small implements like shears . . .

  Suddenly I remembered what the Spook had pointed out carved on the oak tree soon after we’d entered Pendle. They weren’t shears. They were sharp scissors, used to cut flesh and bone! And around the witch’s neck was a necklace of bones. Some I recognized as human—fingers and toes—and thumb bones hung from each earlobe. Trophies from those she’d slain.

  She was powerful and also beautiful in a strange sort of way, and looking at her made my teeth tingle. But her lips were painted black, and when she opened her mouth in a travesty of a smile, I saw that her teeth had been filed to points. And at that moment I recalled Tibb’s words.

  I was looking into the mouth of death.

  “You’re a disappointment,” Grimalkin said, leaning back against the trunk of the final tree and pointing her daggers downward so that the long blades crossed against her knees. “I’ve heard so much about you, and despite your youth I hoped for more. Now I see that you’re just a child and hardly worthy of my skills. It’s a pity I can’t wait until you become a man.”

  “Then let me go, please,” I begged, seeing just a faint glimmer of hope in what she said. “They told me that you like a kill to be difficult. So why don’t you wait? When I’m older, we’ll meet again. Then I’d be able to put up a fight. Let me live!”

  “I do what must be done,” she said, shaking her head, genuine sadness in her eyes. “I wish it were otherwise but . . .”

  She shrugged and allowed the blade to fall from her right hand and bury itself in the soft earth at her feet. Then she held her right arm wide as if offering an embrace. “Come here, child. Rest your head against my bosom and close your eyes. I will make it swift. There will be a brief moment of pain—hardly more than a mother’s kiss against your throat—and then your struggle against this life will be over. Trust me. I will give you peace at last.”

  I nodded, lowered my head, and approached her, my heart racing. As I took the second step toward her waiting embrace, tears suddenly flowed down my cheeks, and I heard her give a deep sigh. But in completing that step, I flicked the Spook’s staff from my right hand to my left. And with all the speed and strength that I could muster, I drove it hard at her so that the blade went straight through her left shoulder, pinning her to the trunk of the tree.

  She uttered no sound at all. The pain must have been terrible, but her only reaction was a slight tightening of the lips. I released the staff, leaving it still quivering in the wood, then turned to run. The blade had gone deep into the tree and the staff itself was rowan. She would find it difficult and painful to free herself. Now I had a chance to reach the safety of Mam’s room.

  I’d only taken two steps when something made me turn and look back toward the witch. She had reached across with her right hand and taken the blade from her left, and now, with incredible speed and force, she hurled the knife straight at my head.

  I watched it spinning toward me, its blade reflecting the red light of the moon. End over end it came. I could have tried to duck or even step to one side, but neither movement would have saved me from the speed and force of that blade.

  What I did was not done consciously. I had no time to think. I made no decision. Some other part of me acted. I simply concentrated, my whole self focused on that spinning blade until time seemed to slow.

  I reached up and plucked it out of the air, my fingers closing about the wooden handle. Then I cast it away from me onto the grass. Moments later I was climbing the fence and running across the field toward the farm.

  The farmyard was still and silent. The animals were being cared for by our neighbor, Mr. Wilkinson, so that wasn’t alarming in itself. It was just that I felt very uneasy. A sudden fearful thought pushed itself into my head.

  What if the Fiend were already here? What if he were already inside the darkness of the farmhouse? Lurking inside one of the downstairs rooms, ready to follow me up the stairs and pounce as I tried to unlock the door of Mam’s room?

  Thrusting the thought aside, I ran past the site of the burned barn and across the yard toward the house. I glanced at the wall, which should have been covered in a profusion of red roses. Mam’s roses. But they were dead, blackened and withered on their stems. And there was no Mam waiting to greet me inside. No Dad. This had been my home, but now it looked more like a house from a nightmare.

  At the back door, I paused for a moment to listen. Silence. So I went in and ran up the stairs two at a time until I faced the door to Mam’s room. Then I pulled the keys from my neck and, with shaking fingers, inserted the largest one into the lock. Once inside, I locked the door behind me and leaned back against it, breathing deeply. I gazed around at the empty room with its bare floorboards. The air here was much warmer than outside. I felt the mildness of a summer’s night. I was safe. Or was I?

  Could even Mam’s room protect me from the Devil himself? Hardly had I begun to wonder about that when I remembered again something that Mam had said.

  If you’re brave and your soul is pure and good, this room is a redoubt, a fortress against the dark. . . .

  Well, I was as brave as I could manage under the circumstances. I was afraid, true, but who wouldn’t be? No, it was the bit about my soul being pure and good that worried me now. I felt that I’d changed for the worse. Bit by bit, the need to survive had made me betray the way that I’d been brought up. Dad had taught me that I should keep my word, but I’d never for one moment intended to keep my bargain with Mab. It had been for a good reason, but nevertheless I’d deceived her. And the strange thing was that Mab, a witch who belonged to the dark, always kept her word.

  And then there was Grimalkin. She had a code of honor, but I’d beaten her with guile, with sly deceit. Was that why the tears had gushed from my eyes as I’d pretended to step toward her deadly embrace? Those tears had come as a complete surprise to me. An emotion had welled up inside, and I’d had no control over it. Those tears had probably put Grimalkin further off her guard: She’d assumed I was crying in fear.

  Had they in fact been tears of shame? Tears because I knew I’d fallen so far short of the behavior that Dad had expected of me? If my soul was no longer pure and good, then the room might not protect me, and my lies had merely put off the moment of my destruction.

  I walked across to the window and peered out. It overlooked the farmyard, and in the light of the blood moon I could see the blackened foundations of the barn, the empty pig and cattle pens, and the north pasture reaching to the foot of Hangman’s Hill. Nothing moved.

  I paced back toward the center of the room, growing increasingly nervous. Would I see the Devil approach? And if so, what form would he take? Or would he simply materialize out of the empty air? No sooner had that scary thought entered my head than I heard t
errifying noises from outside—loud booms and bangs, thuds against the walls—and the house actually began to shake. Was it the Fiend? Was he trying to break into the house? Smash through the stones?

  It certainly sounded as if something were battering at the walls. Next, powerful rhythmical thumps came from above. Something heavy was pounding on the roof, and I could hear slates falling down into the yard. There were fearful bellowing and snorting sounds, too, like those of an angry bull. But when I rushed to the window again, there was nothing to be seen. Nothing at all.

  As suddenly as they had started, the sounds ceased, and in the deep silence that followed, the house itself seemed to be holding its breath. Then there were more noises, but from within the house; from down in the kitchen. The smash and crash of cups and saucers. The clatter of cutlery on stone flags. Someone was throwing crockery hard onto the floor; emptying drawers of kitchen utensils. Moments later, that ceased, too, but into the brief silence intruded a new noise—that of a rocking chair. I could hear it clearly, creaking as its wooden runners made rhythmic contact with the flags.

  For a moment my heart leaped. I’d heard that sound so many times as a child: the familiar noise of Mam rocking in her chair. She was back! Mam had come back to save me, and now everything would be all right again!

  I should have had more faith, realized that she wouldn’t leave me to face this horror alone. I reached for the key, actually intending to unlock the door and go downstairs. But I remembered just in time that Mam’s chair had been smashed to pieces by the witches who’d raided the house. The crockery had already been broken, too, the knives and forks scattered on the flags. They were just sounds, re-created to lure me from the safety of the room.

  That sinister rocking faded and ceased. The next sound was much nearer. Something was climbing the stairs. It wasn’t the thump of heavy boots. It sounded more like a large animal. I could hear its panting breath, the pad-pad of heavy paws on the wooden stairs and then a low, angry growl.

  Moments later, claws started scratching at the bottom of the door. At first it was exploratory and halfhearted, like a farm dog lured by the appetizing smell of cooking but remembering its place in the scheme of things and trying to get into a kitchen without doing too much damage. But then the clawing became more rapid and frantic, as if the wood were being ripped to shreds.

  Next I had a sense of something huge; something far larger than a dog. A sudden stench of death and rot assailed my senses, and filled with alarm, I backed away from the door just as something thudded against it heavily. The door began to groan and buckle. For a moment I thought it would shatter or be flung open, but then the pressure eased, and all I could hear was the panting breath.

  After a while even that faded away, and I began to have more faith in the room and what Mam had done to protect me. Slowly I started to believe that I was safe and that not even the Devil himself could reach me here. Eventually my fear receded, to be replaced by weariness.

  I was close to exhaustion now, hardly able to keep my eyes open, so I stretched myself out on the hard wooden boards. Despite the discomfort, I fell almost immediately into a very deep sleep. How long I slept, it was impossible to say, but when I got up, nothing had changed. I walked over to the window and gazed out over the same bleak scene. Nothing moved. It was a nightmare vision of timelessness. But then I realized that I was wrong. There had been one change. The ground was even whiter, the frost covering thicker and more extensive. Would the blood moon ever set? Would the sun ever shine again?

  Within the room there was still the mild warmth of a County summer’s night, but gradually, even as I watched, frost started to form on the outside of the window until it became white and opaque.

  I walked across and placed my hand against it. The air around me was balmy, but the cold of the window bit into my skin instantly. I breathed hard onto the glass until a small circle of visibility formed, allowing me a narrow view of the same dismal outer scene.

  Was I trapped in some sort of earthly hell? Had the arrival of the Fiend done more damage than the Spook had expected, creating a timeless frozen domain over which he would rule forever? Would it ever be safe to leave Mam’s room?

  I felt defeated and weary, and my mouth was parched, for I’d brought no water with me! What a fool I’d been! I should have thought of that and prepared myself better. To stay in Mam’s refuge for any significant length of time, I needed water and provisions. Things had happened so quickly, though. From the time I’d entered Pendle with the Spook, it had been one threat after another, danger after danger. What chance had there been?

  For a while I paced the floor. Backward and forward, from wall to wall. There was nothing else to do. Backward and forward, my boots thumping on the wooden boards. As I paced, I started to develop a severe headache. I didn’t usually get headaches, but this one was really bad. It was as if a great weight were pressing down on the top of my head and it throbbed with every frantic beat of my heart.

  How long could I go on like this? Even if time was actually passing, it wasn’t like anything I’d experienced before. With that I had a sudden dark thought. . . .

  Mam had protected the room, and the Fiend couldn’t get in. But that didn’t stop what he could do outside the room. He had changed the world—or at least changed the world that I could see from the window. Everything outside this room—the farm, the house, the trees, people, and animals—was in his grip. Would I ever be able to leave the room again? Maybe the world would only return to normal once I went outside?

  Dark thoughts started to slip into my mind, despite all my efforts to keep them out. What was the use of anything? We were born, we lived a few years, grew old, and then died. What was the point of it all? All those people in the County and the wide world beyond, living their short little lives before going to the grave. What was it all for? My dad was dead. He’d worked hard all his life, but the journey of his life had had only one destination: the grave. That’s where we were all heading. Into the grave. Into the soil, to be eaten by worms. Poor Billy Bradley had been the Spook’s apprentice before me. He’d had his fingers bitten off by a boggart and had died of shock and loss of blood. And where was he now? In a grave. Not even in a churchyard. He was buried outside because the Church considered him no better than a malevolent witch. That would be my fate, too. A grave in unhallowed ground.

  And Father Stocks hadn’t even been buried yet. He was still lying dead in bed at Read Hall, his body rotting on the sheets. All his life he’d struggled to do right, just like my dad. Better to get it over with now, I thought. Better to leave Mam’s room. Once I was dead, it would be finished with. There wouldn’t be anything to worry about anymore. No pain, no more heartache.

  Anything was better than being imprisoned in this room until I died of thirst or starvation. Better to go outside now and be done with it.

  I was actually walking toward the door and reaching for the key when I sensed a sudden coldness; a warning. Something that didn’t belong in this world was close by. In the corner of the room farthest from the door and the window, a shimmering column of light began to form.

  I backed away. Was it a ghost or something from the dark? I saw walking boots materialize first, then a black cassock. It was a priest! The head formed quickly, the face looking at me uncertainly. It was the ghost of Father Stocks!

  Or was it? I shivered again. I’d met things that could shape-shift. What if this was the Fiend, taking on the form of Father Stocks in order to deceive me? I fought to steady my breathing. Mam had said that nothing evil could enter here. I had to believe that. It was all I had left. So whatever the apparition was, it had to be good, not evil.

  “I’m sorry, Father!” I cried. “Sorry that I didn’t return in time to save you. I did my best and got back before dark fell, but it was already too late.”

  Father Stocks nodded sadly. “You did all you could, Tom. All you possibly could. But now I’m lost and afraid. I’ve been wandering in a gray fog for what seems like an etern
ity. Once I thought I saw a faint glimmer of light ahead, but it faded and died away. And I keep hearing voices, Tom. The voices of children calling my name. Oh, Tom! I think they’re the voices of the children I never had, my unborn children calling out to me. I should have been a real father, Tom. Not a priest. And now it’s too late.”

  “But why are you here, Father? Why have you come here to visit me? Are you here to help?”

  The ghost shook its head and looked bewildered. “I just found myself here, Tom, that’s all. I didn’t choose to be here. Perhaps somebody sent me. But why, I don’t know.”

  “You lived a good life, Father,” I told him, stepping closer and starting to feel sorry for him. “You made a difference to lots of people and you fought the dark. What more could you do? So just go back. Go and look after yourself and forget me! Leave me—go back and search for the light.”

  “I can’t, Tom. I don’t know how. I’ve tried to pray, but now my mind’s just full of darkness and despair. I tried to fight the dark but didn’t do it very well. I should have seen what Wurmalde was long ago. I let her blind me with glamour and fascination. Nowell suffered the same. But I should have known better. I failed as a priest, and all my training as a spook came to nothing. My life’s been a complete waste. It was all for nothing!”

  The plight of poor Father Stocks finally made me forget my own fears. He was in torment, and I had to help. I remembered how the Spook usually dealt with troubled ghosts that couldn’t move on. If giving them a good talking-to had no effect, he would ask them to consider their own lives. To focus on a happy memory. A memory that usually freed them from the chains binding them to this world.

  “Listen to me, Father. You were a spook as well as a priest. So remember now what John Gregory taught you. All you have to do is think about a happy memory and concentrate on that. So think now! Think carefully. Concentrate! What was your happiest moment on this earth?”