“But if Grimalkin’s really on our side, that’s got to help. And we need all the help we can get!” I said.
The Spook shook his head firmly. “There’s no doubt that witches being at odds with one another can only weaken them and further our cause. But I keep telling you: We can’t side with any of them. The Fiend may well try to compromise you and thus bend you slowly toward the dark—so slowly that you might not even realize that it’s happening!”
“I’d never serve the dark!” I said angrily.
“Don’t be so sure, lad,” the Spook continued. “Even your own mother once served the dark! Remember that. It could happen to you.”
I had to bite my lip to stop myself giving an angry retort. The silence lengthened. The Spook stared at me hard. “Cat got your tongue, lad? Could it be that you’re sulking? Can’t you stand to hear a few home truths?”
I shrugged. “I can’t believe you think I could end up on the side of the dark. I thought you knew me better than that!”
“I just worry about it, lad. That’s all. It’s a possibility we face. That you might be corrupted. I’ll say this to you now, and I don’t ever want you to forget it. Don’t keep secrets from me. Tell me everything, no matter how badly you think I’ll take it. Is that clear? Everything! These are dangerous times and I’m the only person you can truly trust,” he said pointedly, looking in Alice’s direction. “Do you understand?”
I could see Alice watching my face very carefully. I felt sure she was wondering whether I’d tell him that she was preparing to use a blood jar to keep the Fiend at bay. If the Spook knew that, he’d send her away. That or worse. He might even consider her an enemy. He bound witches in pits, and Alice had once come very close to suffering that fate.
I knew a lot hinged on my reply. The Spook was my master but Alice was my friend and an increasingly powerful ally against the dark.
“Well?” said the Spook
“I understand,” I told him.
“That’s good, lad.”
He nodded but didn’t comment and the conversation came to an end. We took turns to stand guard, watching for danger. Arkwright slept on so we decided to spend the night in the same spot.
But my sleep was fitful. What I’d just done filled me with fear and uncertainty. My dad had brought me up to be honest and truthful, but Mam, although she was an enemy of the dark, had told Alice to use anything to keep me safe from the Fiend. Anything . . .
CHAPTER XXVI
The Unthinkable
DESPITE the danger from the dark, we needed to build up our strength, so at dawn, before continuing south, we breakfasted on rabbits caught and cooked by Alice. Although Arkwright was somewhat better, our progress was still slow and we were further delayed by a detour to Cartmel to buy him a new pair of boots.
On finally reaching the coast, we had a long wait for the tide to reach full ebb. The Spook kept his promise to the hermit, and in addition to paying the guide, contributed three silver coins to the fund to support the families of those who’d drowned.
We approached the mill at dusk. But at the edge of the moat Claw warned us that something was very wrong. Her hackles rose and she began to growl. Then Alice sniffed three times and turned to me, alarm on her face.
“Something nasty ahead. Don’t like it, Tom!”
Arkwright looked down at the moat and frowned. Then he knelt, dipped his forefinger into the murky water, and touched it briefly to his lips.
“The salt concentration’s high. Nothing from the dark could cross that. Maybe something’s got out.”
I remembered the water witch and the skelt, both captive in pits under the house. Had they escaped?
“I tipped five barrels of salt into the moat,” I told him. “But I didn’t put any into the pits.”
“Even so, Master Ward, there should still be enough in there to keep them docile. If anything’s got loose, it must’ve had some serious help!” said Arkwright.
“Aye,” the Spook agreed, “and that moat would be no barrier to the most powerful creature from the dark: the Fiend himself!”
Arkwright nodded, and the three of us followed in his wake as he strode across the moat. He led us to the house toward the waterwheel, with Claw at his side. Suddenly he halted. There was a body lying facedown on the ground. He turned it over with his new boot.
The man’s throat had been torn out, yet there was little blood to be seen. His body had been drained, probably by a water witch. But then I looked at the corpse’s face, which was frozen in horror and pain. The mouth was open, the front teeth broken stumps. It was one of the press-gang: the sergeant, who’d fled the house first and run toward me before changing his mind at the sight of the dogs.
“It’s one of a gang of deserters I’d a run-in with north of the bay,” Arkwright said to the Spook. “They made what I thought were empty threats. Said they’d find me and sort me out. Well, this one got sorted out all right. In the wrong place at the wrong time just about sums it up.”
He walked on and halted at the porch and I heard him utter a curse. When we drew level, I saw why. The front door had been ripped from its hinges. It might well be the work of a water witch.
“We need to search the house first to see if anything’s still lurking inside. It’s not the deserters we need to worry about. It’s what killed them,” Arkwright said.
He lit two candles and handed one to Alice. My master left his bag just inside the door and moved cautiously into the first room, his staff in his right hand, his silver chain in his left. Carrying the other candle, Arkwright was unarmed and so was Alice, but I had my staff at the ready.
Claw began to growl as we crossed the bare wooden floorboards, and I expected something to rush at us from the shadows at any moment. That didn’t happen but we saw something that brought us to a sudden halt.
Burned into the floor was a series of footprints, nine in all, and each had the shape of a cloven hoof. They began in the middle of the room and ended just short of the kitchen door. It suggested that the Fiend had materialized there, taken those nine steps and then disappeared again. So where was he now? It sent a chill right to my heart. He might appear again at any moment.
But there was nothing to do but go on, and without a word we nervously entered the kitchen. Here Arkwright reached across the sink to the window ledge and grasped the large knife he’d shown me during our first lesson together. The door that gave access to the stairs was wide open. Was there something up in one of the bedrooms?
After commanding Claw to stay in the kitchen and guard our backs, Arkwright led the way up, with the Spook at his shoulder. I stood with Alice on the landing while they searched, waiting tensely, listening to their boots clumping through each bedroom. Again there was nothing. After that there was just the large room at the top of the house that housed Arkwright’s library. No sooner had they entered it than Arkwright let out a loud cry of anguish. Thinking he was hurt or under attack, I rushed up the stairs to help.
As soon as I entered the room, it was clear why he’d cried out. The coffins of his mam and dad had been hurled from their trestles and smashed. Bones were heaped on the floorboards. And there were more cloven hoofprints burned into the boards.
Arkwright was beside himself with grief and rage, shaking from head to foot. Only gradually did the Spook manage to calm him down.
“The Fiend did this,” my master told him. “He did it to rile you. He wants a red mist of anger to cloud your judgment. Stay calm for all of our sakes. When this is over, we’ll put your parents to rights again, but now we need to check the pits.”
Arkwright took a deep breath and nodded. We left Claw in the kitchen, and instead of using the trapdoor, we went outside again and approached the door next to the waterwheel.
“You stay outside, lad,” the Spook whispered. “Bill and I will deal with this!”
I obeyed as Alice, giving me a little wave, followed them inside. But they’d been gone for less than a minute when something gleamed in the darkn
ess to my right. There was a loud, angry hiss and two menacing eyes stared back into mine. I watched apprehensively as something resembling the leg of an enormous insect slowly emerged from the shadows.
It was gray, multi-jointed, and very long indeed. The leg of something thin but monstrous. A second limb followed and next came a head. And what a head! Something I’d never seen even in my scariest nightmares: a very thin snout, the nose flat, the ears laid back against the bony, elongated head, and close-set eyes that stared right into mine. It was the skelt.
I tried to call out but I couldn’t even manage to open my mouth. As it moved closer and closer, its eyes never left mine and I felt the strength leaving me. I was like a rabbit transfixed by the gaze of a deadly stoat. My brain didn’t seem to be working properly and my body was paralyzed.
Upright, it would have been taller than me. In addition to that narrow head, its long tubular body had two segments that were hard and ridged, like those of a crab or lobster, and barnacle-encrusted like the bottom of a boat. Its eight legs, however, were more like those of a spider, its movements delicate and precise, its joints creaking and crepitating as it moved.
Suddenly the skelt surged toward me, all eight legs a flickering blur, and scuttled right up my body, hurling me backward to the ground. I was winded by the fall and now its weight was pressing against me. Its scrabbling legs lay across my arms and legs, pinning me so that I was helpless. I stared up into the ugly, toothless snout, which opened just inches from my face, the creature enveloping me in a stench of dank, moldering loam and rot from stagnant pools. And from the widening mouth a long tube of translucent white bone began to extend toward me. I remembered how Arkwright had told me that a skelt had no tongue; instead it used this bone-tube to pierce its victim and suck up its blood.
Something forced my head back and there was a sudden excruciating pain in my throat. The sharp tube that protruded from the mouth of the skelt suddenly changed color and became red. It was sucking my blood and there was nothing I could do. The pain intensified. How much would it take? I began to panic. It might continue to feed until my heart stopped.
It was then that I heard the noises of running feet and a cry of dismay from Alice. There was a sudden loud thwack followed by a crunching sound. The skelt suddenly withdrew the bone-tube from my throat and rolled away from me.
The paralysis had left me, and I struggled onto my knees in time to see Arkwright holding a bloodstained stone in both hands, then lifting it high before bringing it down hard on the skelt’s head. There was a cracking, crunching noise again, which ended with a sickening squelch; the skelt’s whole body twitched, its legs going into a death spasm. Then it lay still, a pool of blood and fluid spreading out from its head, which had cracked open like an egg. I lurched to my knees, about to thank Arkwright but he spoke first.
“An interesting creature, Master Ward,” he observed drily as Alice and the Spook helped me to my feet. Breathing hard and fast after the exertion, he placed the stone down beside the dead skelt. “Very rare, as I once told you. Not many people are fortunate enough to see one at such close proximity.”
“Oh, Tom, I shouldn’t have left you,” Alice cried, squeezing my hand. “I thought it would still be inside under the mill.”
“Well, no real harm done in the end,” observed Arkwright. “Thank Alice for that, Master Ward. She sensed that something was wrong out here. Now let’s get back inside and check the other pit.”
As we’d expected, the water witch had escaped—or more likely been freed. The bars were bent apart and there were webbed witch footprints in the soft earth leading away. Smaller prints than those made by the skelt.
“No doubt this is the work of the Fiend,” said the Spook. “He likes to demonstrate his power.”
“But where’s the witch now?” Arkwright asked.
Claw was summoned and she made a thorough search of the garden; the two spooks followed her closely, weapons at the ready.
“She ain’t here, Tom, that’s for sure,” Alice told me. “Would have sniffed her out myself otherwise.”
“Not if the Fiend’s close by, though,” I said with a shiver. “Neither of us suspected Morwena on the barge.”
Alice nodded and looked really scared.
“But where could the witch be hiding?” I asked.
“She’s probably across the moat and escaped into the marsh,” Alice said. “Old Nick could’ve carried her over. Salt ain’t going to stop him, is it? Too strong, he is, for old tricks such as that!”
When the search proved fruitless, we retreated to the kitchen, where I made up the fire in the stove. Threatened by the dark, we didn’t eat but at least we were warm and took turns to keep watch. Claw was put on guard outside to warn us if anything approached from the marsh.
“Best if we leave the body until morning,” Arkwright suggested.
“Aye, we’ll lay him to rest then, if we get the chance,” the Spook agreed. “How many deserters were there?”
“Five in all,” I replied.
“My guess is that the witch was already free when they crossed the moat into the garden,” Arkwright added. “Could be that when she attacked and pinned down her prey, the others fled.”
No one spoke for a while. Alice seemed preoccupied. I began to feel very uneasy. The Fiend’s daughter was somewhere out there just waiting her chance. And now there was another water witch free. If she’d escaped across the moat helped by the Fiend, what was there to stop the reverse occurring? Surely he wouldn’t find it too difficult to bring them to us? Not to mention the fact that he might pay us a visit himself.
The others placed the chairs close to the stove and made themselves as comfortable as they could. I sat on the kitchen floor, resting my shoulders and head against the wall. It wasn’t very comfortable, but despite that and my fear of an attack, I finally managed to drift off into a shallow, fitful sleep. I woke up suddenly. Somebody was shaking my shoulder and a hand was firmly clamped over my mouth.
I looked into the eyes of the Spook, who gestured urgently toward the far corner of the room. The candles had burned low and the kitchen was gloomy. Alice and Arkwright were already awake; they were sitting beside me, staring into that same dark corner, where something strange and eerie was happening even as we watched. A shape was beginning to materialize, shifting slowly from a faint ashen gray to a flickering silver. It became more distinct—until without doubt I was looking at the Fiend’s daughter: her face cadaverous and gaunt; her angular, fleshless nose jutting from between her malevolent eyes; the left lid transfixed by that sliver of bone; the right eye serpentine and cruel.
“I thirst,” she cried, revealing her large canine teeth. “I thirst for your sweet blood. But I will let you live. All shall live but one. Just give me the boy and the rest may go free.”
It was an image rather than the actual presence of the witch in the room. Although she was apparently standing less than seven paces away, she seemed to call to us from a great distance and I could hear the sighing of the wind in the background.
“My father will pay well for what I ask,” she cried, her voice like the grating of a shingle beach under an ebb tide. “Give me the boy so that Amelia can be at peace. It’s my father who binds her soul, preventing her from passing on. But surrender the boy and he’ll release her and both she and Abraham will be free to choose the light. Just give me the boy and it’ll be done. Send him alone out onto the marsh. Send him to me now.”
“Go back from whence you came, evil hag!” cried the Spook. “We’ll give you nothing. Nothing but death. Do you hear me? That’s all that awaits you here!”
Arkwright remained silent but I thought that Morwena’s cruel words must be like a blade twisting inside him. Above all things he wanted peace for his mam and dad. But despite the way he had treated me, I had faith in him. I believed that he served the light and would be strong enough to resist any temptation that the Fiend’s daughter might dangle before him.
The image of Morwena seem
ed to shimmer and blur; she touched her finger to her left lid and her eye opened wide. But fortunately that baleful eye was powerless, for its bloodred color was transmuted into silver.
Now she began to chant, her voice reaching a high eldritch note. There was rhythm, intonation, and rhyme, the whole filled with a terrible power. But what exactly was being chanted? What did it mean? It sounded to me like the “Old Tongue”—that spoken by the first men who lived in the County.
My limbs seemed to be growing heavy and I felt strangely hot and cold at the same time. I tried to stand but couldn’t. Too late I knew what the Fiend’s daughter was doing. Those ancient words were a curse, an act of powerful dark magic that was sapping our strength and our will.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw that the Spook had somehow managed to rise to his feet. He pulled back his robe and reached into his breeches pockets. Then he hurled something straight at that evil apparition—something white from his right hand, something dark from his left: a mixture of salt and iron, usually so effective against creatures of the dark. Would it work this time—when the substance of our enemy wasn’t even present in the room?
Immediately the chanting ceased and the image vanished as suddenly as a snuffed candle flame. I felt relief flood through me and staggered unsteadily to my feet. The Spook shook his head wearily.
“That was close,” said Arkwright. “For a moment I thought it was all over with us.”
“Aye, I wouldn’t dispute that,” said the Spook. “Never have I come up against a witch with such power. I suppose it comes from that dark Devil blood that runs in her veins. The County will be a far better place if we can put an end to her. But now I think we should all try to stay awake for the rest of the night. If she repeats that and only one of us is on watch, she might somehow, even at a distance, slay us in our sleep.”
We did as the Spook suggested, but first I built up the fire again and left the door of the stove open so that it radiated heat directly into the room. We lit another two candles so that the light might last us until morning. I also filled my pockets with salt and iron from my bag so that I had one more weapon ready to use against the dark. But once settled down, nobody spoke. I looked sideways at Alice but she was staring at the floorboards and looked terrified. Both the Spook and Arkwright looked grim and determined but I wondered how they felt inside. After all, what could anyone do against power such as the Fiend’s? As for Arkwright, he must be pondering what the witch had said—that it was her father’s dark power that prevented his poor mam from crossing to the light.
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