We found Mam talking to James behind the barn. When she saw us, she took her leave of my brother and came to greet our visitor. “This is Bill Arkwright, Mam,” I told her. “He’s come to hear what you have to say.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Ward,” Arkwright said, giving a little bow. “I’m intrigued by what your son has told me and would like to know more.”
Mam turned to face me and gave me a warm smile. “I’d like to talk to Mr. Arkwright in private for a few moments, son. Why don’t you take a walk to the south meadow where the campfires are. There’s someone there who’d like a word with you.”
“What? One of the witches?” I asked, puzzled.
“Why don’t you go and find out?”
I wondered why she couldn’t just discuss things with Arkwright while I was there, but I nodded and left them to talk.
The campfires were scattered across the big field next to land belonging to our neighbor, Mr. Wilkinson—half a dozen of them, with two or three witches around each fire. Who could want to talk to me? I wondered. As I walked across, I could see food cooking, and once again there was a tantalizing aroma of stewed rabbit.
It was then that I heard footsteps behind me and turned quickly, my mouth opening in surprise. Facing me was a girl of about my own height. She was wearing pointy shoes, and her black dress was tied at the waist with a piece of string.
Alice.
CHAPTER V
Alice Deane
“MISSED you, Tom Ward,” Alice said, tears threatening to fall. “Ain’t been the same without you.”
She came toward me and we hugged tightly. I heard her sob and felt her shoulders trembling. As we pulled apart, I was suddenly filled with guilt. Although I was now delighted to see her, I’d spent long weeks obeying the Spook and turning away each time she’d tried to contact me.
“Thanks for using the mirror to warn me about the maenad, Alice. She would have killed me but for you.”
“I was scared you wouldn’t listen, Tom. I’ve tried to contact you before, but you always turned away.”
“I was just doing what the Spook told me.”
“But couldn’t you have used it one more time after I warned you? Just to let me know that you were all right? Worried sick, I was. Your mam told me she was meeting you here when she contacted me with a mirror and asked me to join her. So I had to assume you were all right.”
I felt a little ashamed but tried to explain. “I can’t use a mirror, Alice. I’ve promised the Spook I won’t.”
“But that’s changed now, ain’t it? You don’t need to worry about Old Gregory any longer, do you? Going to Greece, I am, with you and your mam. We’ll be together again at last. And I’m glad he decided not to come with us. Won’t have him looking over our shoulder, will we?”
“Don’t talk about the Spook like that!” I snapped angrily. “He’s worried about me. Worried that I’ll be compromised and drawn toward the dark. That the Fiend will win me over to his side. That’s why he won’t let me have any contact with you, Alice. He’s trying to protect me. Anyway,” I continued, “how do you know he’s not coming? Were you spying on us?”
“Oh, Tom, when will you learn that there’s not much I don’t know?”
“So you were spying.”
“No, actually. Didn’t need to. It wasn’t hard to work out what was going on when we all saw him storming back to Chipenden.”
For a moment, despite my hot words, the thought struck me that if the Spook stayed home in Chipenden, then there really was nothing to stop me from being with Alice. But I felt another strong pang of guilt and dismissed the idea instantly.
“Look, it’ll be good on this journey, Tom. Your mam thinks differently than Old Gregory. She doesn’t mind us being together, and she still stands by what she said last year. That together we can defeat the Fiend—”
“Your own father, Alice!” I interrupted. “I found out your dark secret. The Fiend is your own father, isn’t he?”
Alice gasped and her eyes widened in surprise. “How can you know that?”
“He told me himself!”
She looked shocked. “Well, ain’t no use denying it. But it weren’t my secret, Tom. I didn’t know until he visited me the night before Old Gregory sent me away. Terrified, I was, to be face-to-face with Old Nick, and it was even worse when he told me I was his daughter! Can you imagine what that was like? Thought I belonged to him. That I was on my way to Hell. Going to burn there for all eternity. I felt so weak in his presence that I had to do anything he told me. But as soon as I was back in Pendle, your mam contacted me using a mirror. Told me I was a lot stronger than I thought. Gave me new confidence, she did. I’ve come to terms with it, Tom. So I’m going to fight him. What else can I do but try?”
A mixture of thoughts and emotions churned within me. Mam and Alice had been in contact using mirrors in the past. Clearly it was still going on. And that made me very uneasy.
“I still can’t believe that Mam’s made an alliance with witches!” I said, gesturing at the campfires around us.
“But all of them witches are sworn enemies of the Fiend. Twenty or more of ’em are coming with us. They know it was a big mistake to bring him through the portal, ’cos now he’s trying to make ’em all do his bidding. So they’re fighting back. Destroy the Ordeen and it’s a big blow against the Fiend. Some from each of the main clans are coming with us. Your mam’s organizing everything. It’s just exactly as she wants it. Glad to be here again, I am, Tom, away from Pendle.”
Only last year the Malkins had abducted Jack and his family, Mam’s own flesh and blood, but now here she was, commanding the Malkins and the other Pendle witches, forming an alliance with them to help bring victory. It was hard to take in. And then there was Alice—what had she been up to back in Pendle? Had she moved closer to the dark again?
“What was it like back there?” I asked. “Where did you stay?”
“Mostly with Agnes Sowerbutts. Tried to keep away from the others, but it ain’t been easy.”
Agnes was her aunt—a Deane who lived on the far edge of the clan village and kept herself to herself. She used a mirror to see what was going on in the world but was a healer and certainly not a malevolent witch; bad as Pendle was, Alice had stayed at the best possible place. But what did she mean by “the others”?
“Who else did you see?”
“Mab Mouldheel and her two sisters.”
“What did they want?”
Mab, although no more than fifteen or so, was the leader of the Mouldheel clan. She was one of the most powerful scryers in the whole of the Pendle district, able to use a mirror to see clear visions of the future. She was also malevolent and often used human blood.
“They knew about the journey to Greece and what we were going to do because Mab scryed it. They wanted to come, too.”
“But Mab played a big part in bringing the Fiend through the portal, Alice. Why would she want to destroy one of his servants?”
“They realize they done wrong and want to put it right. Don’t you remember how Mab was reluctant to join with the other two clans? Soft on you, she was, and only did it because you betrayed her and drove her from Malkin Tower.”
That was true enough. I’d tricked her into releasing Mam’s two sisters, feral lamias, from the trunks. In revenge she’d led her clan into an alliance with the Deanes and Malkins to raise the Fiend.
“So what happened, Alice? Are they here? Are they going to travel with us?”
“Your mam told me to contact Mab again and ask her to come. Ain’t arrived yet, but they’ll be here soon enough.”
“Apart from Mam, do any of the witches know who your father is?”
Alice shook her head and looked about her furtively. “I’ve told nobody,” she whispered. “As far as they’re concerned, my dad was Arthur Deane, and I want to keep it that way. If they knew who I really was, none of ’em would trust me.
“Anyway, you hungry, Tom?” she went on, raising her voice
again. “Got some rabbits cooking, I have. Just how you like ’em!”
“No, thanks, Alice,” I told her. As much as I wanted to be with her, I needed time to collect my thoughts. There was a lot to come to terms with.
She looked disappointed and a little hurt. “Your mam’s told us all to keep well away from the house in case we upset Jack and Ellie. Don’t want witches too close, do they? Only way we’ll see each other is if you come out here to me.”
“Don’t worry, Alice. I’ll do that. I’ll come out tomorrow evening.”
“Do you promise?” she asked doubtfully.
“Yes, I promise.”
“Look forward to that, then. Will you eat your supper with me tomorrow?”
“Of course. See you then.”
“Just one more thing before you go back to the farm, Tom. Grimalkin’s here. She’s coming to Greece with us, too. She wants to talk to you. Over there, she is,” Alice said, pointing to the large oak tree just beyond the meadow. “Best you go and see her now.”
We hugged as we parted—it was really good to hold her again. Then it was time to face Grimalkin. I looked toward the tree, and my heart began to beat more rapidly. Grimalkin was the witch assassin of the Malkins. At one time she’d hunted me down, ready to kill me, but the last time I’d seen her we’d fought side by side.
Better get it over with, I thought, and with a smile and a nod to Alice, I set off toward the corner of the field. There was a gap in the hawthorn hedge, so I pushed my way through, to find the witch assassin waiting there with her back to the old oak.
Her arms were at her sides, but as usual her lithe body was crisscrossed with leather straps and sheaths holding deadly weapons: blades, hooks, and the scary scissors she used to snip the flesh and bone of her enemies.
Her black-painted lips grinned to reveal the sharp teeth within; they had been filed to deadly points. But despite all that, she had a kind of wild beauty about her; the grace and aura of a natural predator.
“Well, child, we meet again,” she said. “When we last talked, I promised you a gift to mark your age.”
In Pendle, she’d told me, on the Walpurgis Night sabbath following his fourteenth birthday, the boy child of a witch clan became a man. I’d turned fourteen on August the third last year, and Walpurgis Night had already passed. She’d promised me something special to mark the occasion, and she’d asked me to go to Pendle to get it. There’d been little chance of that. I hardly thought the Spook would have approved of me accepting a gift from a witch!
“Are you ready to receive it now, child?” Grimalkin asked me.
“It depends what it is,” I said, trying to keep my voice as friendly and polite as possible despite what I felt inside.
She nodded, leaned away from the tree, and took a step toward me. Her eyes stared hard into mine, and I suddenly felt very nervous and vulnerable.
She smiled. “It may help if I tell you that your mother agrees that I should do this. If you don’t believe me, then ask her.”
Grimalkin didn’t lie—she lived by a strict code of honor. But was my mam in contact with all the witches in Pendle? I wondered. Bit by bit, it seemed, everything I believed in, everything my master had taught me, was unraveling. What Mam wanted for me seemed to be constantly clashing with the wishes of the Spook. I had another decision to make, and whatever I decided, one of the two would be unhappy. But once again I decided that Mam’s needs had to take precedence over those of my master, so I gave Grimalkin a brief nod and agreed to accept the gift.
“Here, child. It’s a blade.” She held out a leather pouch. “Take it.”
While she watched, I unwrapped it to reveal the short dagger within. I saw then that the pouch was actually a sheath and strap.
“You wear it diagonally across your shoulder and back,” she explained. “The sheath should be positioned at the nape of your neck so that you can reach for it over your right shoulder. The blade is very potent and can damage even very powerful servants of the dark!”
“Could it destroy the Fiend?” I asked.
Grimalkin shook her head. “No, child. I only wish that it could—I would have used it long ago. But I also have a second gift for you. Come closer—I won’t bite!”
I took a nervous step forward. Grimalkin spat into her right hand and quickly dipped her left forefinger into the spittle. Next she leaned forward, traced a wet circle on my forehead, and muttered something under her breath. For a moment I felt an intense cold inside my head, and then a tingling that ran the length of my spine.
“There, it’s done, child. It is yours to use now.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“My second gift is a dark wish. Has your master never told you about such things?”
I shook my head, feeling sure he’d be furious if he knew I’d received such a thing from a witch. “What is it?”
“It is called dark because nobody, even those skilled in scrying, can foretell when and how it will be used or the outcome of using it. It cost me much to create, years of stored power that you can now unleash with a few words. So only use it when you need something badly and all else fails. Begin with the words “I wish” and state what you want clearly. Afterward repeat your wish a second time. Then it will be done.”
I felt uncomfortable even thinking about using such dark power.
Grimalkin turned to go. “Remember to use the dark wish with great care. Don’t waste it. Don’t use it lightly.”
With that, she pushed her way through the hedge and set off for the nearest campfire without even a backward glance.
I went back toward the farmhouse and found Arkwright chaining up his three dogs in the barn.
“Don’t like to do this, Master Ward, but it’s for the best. Claw’s very territorial. Your farm dogs wouldn’t last long if I let her roam free.”
“Have you decided? Are you coming with us to Greece?” I asked.
“That I am. My one worry is leaving the north of the County unattended. No doubt there’ll be more than one water witch to deal with on my return, but your mam’s talked me round. She’s a very persuasive woman. So the County will just have to manage. For now, the really important work lies across the sea.”
“Has Mam said when we’ll be leaving?” I asked. It struck me that she wasn’t telling me much at all.
“In two days at the most, Master Ward. We’ll be traveling to Sunderland Point and sailing from there. And don’t worry about your old master, Mr. Gregory. He’s set in his ways, but sometimes there are other means to achieving the ends we seek. If he doesn’t come round, then you can always finish your apprenticeship with me. I’d gladly take you on again.”
I thanked him for his kind offer, but deep down I was still disappointed. Much as I liked Arkwright, he wasn’t John Gregory, and it hurt to think I wouldn’t complete my apprenticeship with him as my master.
I turned toward the farmhouse to see Jack bringing in the cows for milking.
“Who was that?” he asked. “Another spook, by the looks of him.”
“Yes,” I said. “It was Bill Arkwright from the north of the County. Mam sent for him.”
“Oh,” he said, far from happy. “Seems I’m the last to know who’s visiting my own farm these days.”
Just then, carried on the breeze from the south, I heard a strange keening noise, halfway between singing and chanting. It was the witches, probably carrying out some sort of ritual.
“Mam says those witches are on our side,” Jack went on grimly, with a nod toward the south meadow. “But what about the other lot from Pendle, the ones who aren’t? Won’t they visit the farm again when you’ve gone? When I’m alone here with just James and my family? That’s what Ellie fears. She’s been under such a lot of strain during the past two years. She’s close to the breaking point.”
I understood that. Ellie had always been afraid that my becoming a spook’s apprentice would put them at risk from the dark. Her fears had proved well founded, and last year she’d lost he
r unborn baby while a prisoner of the Malkins. There was nothing I could say to comfort Jack, so I kept my mouth shut.
CHAPTER VI
A Dreadful Prophecy
THAT night at supper it was just me, Mam, and James. It seemed that little Mary had an upset stomach so Jack and Ellie had taken her to bed early, but I also suspected that my eldest brother wasn’t happy with all that was happening at the farm and was staying away.
Mam was cheerful and kept the conversation going, but only James really responded much. Finally he went off to bed, leaving me alone with Mam.
“What’s troubling you, son?” she asked.
“I’m confused, Mam.”
“Confused?”
“Aye. Take the witches . . . do we really need them? They’re clearly troubling Jack and Ellie, and without them the Spook would probably have come with us to Greece.”
“Sorry, son, but we do. For one thing they’re excellent fighters, particularly Grimalkin, and we’re going to need all the forces we can muster in the battle that faces us. The Ord is a terrifying place, and the Pendle witches are just about the only creatures I know who won’t be too afraid to enter it. They all have their part to play.”
“What about Grimalkin’s presents of the dark wish and the blade? She said you’d agreed to her giving them to me. How can it be right or safe to use anything that comes from the dark? You sent me off to be Mr. Gregory’s apprentice, and now you’re making me go against everything he’s taught me.”
I saw a sadness in Mam’s eyes. “Only you can decide whether or not to use those two gifts, son. I’m also doing things I’d prefer not to. I’m doing them to win a great victory. You may have to do the same at some point. That’s all I can say. Are you wearing the blade?”
“No, Mam, it’s in my bag.”
“Then wear it, son. For me. Will you do that?”
“Yes, Mam. If that’s what you want, then I must do it.”
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