The Spook had paid him generously with almost the last of his money, but even so the fisherman had taken a big risk. We’d sailed away from the Isle of Mona about eight hours earlier, making the crossing west toward Ireland. We were refugees from the invasion of the County, and the Spook, Alice, and I had spent many dangerous months on that island. Now the inhabitants of Mona were returning any refugees they found to the County—into the hands of the occupying forces. Intensive searches were being made. It had been time to get away.
“I hope we get a better welcome here,” said Alice despondently.
“Well, girl, it couldn’t be much worse than last time,” said the Spook.
That was true enough. On Mona we’d been on the run almost immediately.
“You should have little trouble here!” shouted the fisherman, trying to make himself heard above the whine of the wind. “Very few of your folk will have ventured this far, and it’s a big island. A few more mouths to feed won’t worry them much. You might find there’s work for a spook, too. Some call it the Haunted Isle. It certainly possesses more than its fair share of ghosts.”
Spooks deal with the dark. It is a dangerous trade, and I was in the third year of my apprenticeship to my master, John Gregory, learning how to deal with witches, boggarts, and all manner of supernatural creatures. Ghosts usually posed little threat and were the least of our worries. Most didn’t even know they were dead and, with the right words, could be persuaded to go to the light.
“Don’t they have spooks of their own?” I asked.
“They’re a dying breed,” said the fisherman. There was an awkward silence. “I hear tell there are none working in Dublin, and a city like that is bound to be plagued by jibbers.”
“Jibbers?” I queried. “What’s a jibber?”
The fisherman laughed. “You a spook’s apprentice and don’t know what a jibber is? You should be ashamed of yourself! You need to pay more attention to your lessons.”
I felt annoyed by his comments. My master was lost in thought and didn’t seem to be listening to the fisherman. He had never mentioned a jibber, and I was sure there was no account of such things in his Bestiary, which was tucked safely away in his bag. He had written it himself, an illustrated record of all the creatures he’d encountered and heard of, with notes on how to deal with them. There was certainly no reference to a jibber in the Ghosts section. I wondered if he even knew they existed.
“Aye,” continued the fisherman, “I wouldn’t like your job. Despite its storms and moods, the sea is a far safer place to be than facing a jibber. Beware the jibber! Better to be drowned than driven mad!”
At that point the conversation came to an end: The fisherman brought us alongside a small wooden jetty that ran out into the sea from a bank of shingle. The three dogs wasted no time in leaping from the boat. We clambered out more slowly. We were stiff and cold after the voyage.
Moments later, the fisherman put out to sea again, and we made our way to the end of the jetty and up the shingle, our feet crunching on the stones. Anyone would be able to hear our approach from miles away, but at least they wouldn’t be able to see us in the gloom. And in any case, if the fisherman was right, we should be in no danger from angry islanders.
There were dense clouds above and it was now very dark, but the shape of what we took to be a dwelling loomed up in front of us. It proved to be a dilapidated boathouse, where we sheltered for the night.
Dawn brought a better day. The sky had cleared and the wind had dropped. Although still chilly, the late February morning suggested the approach of spring.
The fisherman had called this the Haunted Isle, but its other name, the Emerald Isle, was hopefully more apt—though in truth the County was just as green. We were descending a grassy slope; below us lay the city of Dublin, its dwellings hugging both banks of a big river.
“What’s a jibber?” I asked the Spook. As usual, I was carrying both bags and my staff. He was striding along at a brisk pace, making it hard for Alice and me to keep up.
“I don’t rightly know, lad,” he said, glancing back at me over his shoulder. “It’s probably the local name for something we’re already familiar with—that’s the most likely explanation. For example, what we call a boggart is known as a bogle or even a bogeyman in some parts of the world.”
There were many types of boggart, ranging from bloodthirsty rippers to relatively harmless hall knockers that just thumped and banged and scared people. It was odd to think that some folk called them by different names.
I decided to tell my master what I’d seen in the storm the previous night. “Remember when that squall hit us?” I said. “I saw something strange in the dark cloud overhead—a pair of eyes watching us.”
The Spook came to a halt and stared at me intently. Most people would have been incredulous; others would have laughed openly. I knew that what I was saying sounded crazy, but my master was taking me seriously.
“Are you sure, lad?” he asked. “We were in danger. Even the fisherman was scared—although he tried to play it down later. In situations like that, the mind can play strange tricks on us. Our imaginations are always at work in that way. Stare at the clouds long enough, and you can see faces in them.”
“I’m sure it was more than just my imagination. There were two eyes, one green and one blue, and they looked far from friendly,” I told him.
The Spook nodded. “We need to be alert. We’re in a land that’s strange to us—there could be all sorts of unknown dangers lurking there.”
With that, he set off ahead again. I was surprised that Alice hadn’t contributed anything to the conversation; she had a worried expression on her face.
Just over an hour later, we smelled a whiff of fish on the air; soon we were threading our way through the narrow, congested streets of the city, heading toward the river. Despite the early hour, there was noisy hustle and bustle everywhere, people pushing their way through, street traders haranguing us from every corner. There were street musicians, too—an old man fiddling and several young boys playing tin whistles. But despite the chaos, nobody challenged our right to be in the city. It was a far better start than we’d had in Mona.
There were plenty of inns, but most of them had notices in their windows saying that they were full. At last we found a couple with vacancies, but at the first the price proved too high. My master had scarcely any money left and hoped to get us accommodation for three or four nights while we managed to earn some. At the second inn, we were refused rooms without any real explanation. My master didn’t argue. Some folks didn’t like spooks; they were scared by the fact that they dealt with the dark and thought that evil things would never be far away.
Then, in a narrow backstreet about a hundred yards from the river, we found a third inn with vacancies. The Spook looked up at it doubtfully.
“No wonder they got empty rooms,” said Alice, a frown creasing her pretty face. “Who’d want to stay here?”
I nodded in agreement. The front of the inn needed a good lick of paint, and two of the upstairs windows and one on the ground floor were boarded up. Even the sign needed attention; it was hanging from a single nail, and each gust of wind threatened to send it tumbling down onto the cobbles. The name of the inn was the Dead Fiddler, and the battered sign depicted a skeleton playing a violin.
“Well, we need a roof over our heads, and we can’t afford to be too fussy,” said the Spook. “Let’s seek out the landlord.”
Inside it was so dark and gloomy that it might have been midnight. This was partly caused by the boarded window but also by the large building opposite, which leaned toward this one across the narrow street. There was a candle flickering on the counter opposite the door, and beside it a small bell. The Spook picked up the bell and rang it loudly. At first only silence answered his summons, but then footsteps could be heard descending the stairs, and the innkeeper opened one of the two inner doors and entered the room.
He was a thickset, dour-looking man with l
ank greasy hair that fell over his frayed collar. He looked down in the mouth, defeated by the world, but when he saw my master, he took in the cloak, the hood, and the staff, and instantly his whole demeanor changed.
“A spook!” he exclaimed eagerly, his face lighting up. “To be sure, my prayers have been heard at last!”
“We came to inquire about rooms,” my master said. “But am I to understand that you’ve a problem I could help you with?”
“You are a spook, aren’t you?” The landlord suddenly glanced down at Alice’s pointy shoes and looked a little doubtful.
Women and girls who wore pointy shoes were often suspected of being witches. That was certainly true of Alice; she’d received two years’ training from her mother, Lizzie the bone witch. She was my close friend, and we’d been through a lot together—Alice’s magic had saved my life more than once—but my master was always concerned that one day she might drift back toward the dark. He frowned at her briefly, then turned back to the innkeeper.
“Aye, I’m a spook, and this is my apprentice, Tom Ward. The girl’s called Alice—she works for me, copying books and doing other chores. Why don’t you tell me why you need my services?”
“You sit yourselves down over there and leave your dogs in the yard,” said the landlord, pointing to a table in the corner. “I’ll get you some breakfast and then tell you what needs to be done.”
No sooner were we seated than he brought across another candle and set it down in the center of the table. Then he disappeared into one of the back rooms, and it wasn’t long before we heard the sizzle of a frying pan and a delicious aroma of cooking bacon wafted through the door.
Soon we were tucking into large, steaming platefuls of bacon, eggs, and sausages. The landlord waited patiently for us to finish before joining us at the table and beginning his tale.
“I haven’t one paying customer staying here, and it’s been the same for nearly six months. They’re too scared. Nobody will come near the place since it arrived—so I’m afraid I can’t pay you in coin. But if you get rid of it, I’ll let you have three rooms free of charge for a week. How does that sound?”
“Get rid of what?” demanded the Spook.
“Anyone who meets it goes stark staring mad within minutes,” the innkeeper told him. “It’s a jibber, and a very nasty one at that!”
CHAPTER II
BLOOD EVERYWHERE
“WHAT exactly is a jibber?” my master inquired.
“Don’t you know?” asked the landlord, his face once more showing doubt.
“We don’t have anything called a jibber back in the County, where I come from,” explained the Spook. “So take your time and tell me all about it—then I’ll know better what I’m dealing with.”
“A jibber often appears within a week of somebody killing themselves, and that’s what’s happened here,” the landlord told us. “The chambermaid had been in my employment for over two years—a good hardworking girl, she was, and pretty as a picture. That was her downfall. She attracted someone above her station. I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen.
“Well, to cut a long story short, he made her promises—ones that he had no intention of keeping. And even if he’d meant what he said, there’s no way his family would have approved of their liaison. He was a young man with an inheritance to come and a good family name to uphold. I ask you—was he likely to marry a poor servant girl with not a penny to her name? He told her he loved her. She certainly loved him. But, predictably, it turned out badly. He married a titled lady—it seemed the marriage had been arranged for months. He’d been lying all the time, and when the girl found out, her heart was broken. The silly creature cut her own throat. Not an easy way to go. I heard her choking and coughing, and ran upstairs to see what the matter was. There was blood everywhere.”
“Poor girl,” murmured Alice, shuddering.
I nodded, trying to get the image of her terrible death out of my head. It was a big mistake to kill yourself, no matter how bad the situation seemed. But the poor girl must have been desperate, not really knowing what she was doing.
“There are still stains on the floorboards,” continued the landlord, “and no amount of scrubbing will get ’em out. She took a long time to die. Got her a doctor, but he couldn’t help. Doctors are useless, and that’s a fact. I wouldn’t give one the time of day. Anyway, she’d have gone to a pauper’s grave, but she’d been a good worker, as I said, so I paid for her funeral myself. She’d been dead less than a week when the jibber arrived. The poor girl was hardly cold in her grave and—”
“What were the first signs of its arrival?” interrupted the Spook. “Think carefully. It’s important.”
“There were strange rappings on the floorboards—there was a rhythm to them: two quick knocks, then three slow ones, over and over again. Then, after a few days, an icy chill could be felt at the spot where the poor girl had died—right above the bloodstains. A day later, one of my guests went mad. He jumped through the window and broke both his legs on the cobbles below. His legs will heal, but his mind is beyond repair.”
“Surely you weren’t still using that room? No doubt you warned him about the rappings and the cold spot?”
“He wasn’t staying in the room where the girl died—that was a servant’s room in the attic, right at the top of the building. A jibber haunts the very spot where a suicide occurs, and I assumed that it would stay there. Now they tell me that it can wander anywhere inside the building.”
“Why do they call the thing a jibber?” I asked.
“Because of the noise it makes, boy,” the landlord replied. “It makes jibbering and jabbering noises. It natters and prattles away to itself—sounds that don’t make any sense but are terrifying to hear.” He turned back to the Spook. “So can you sort it out? Priests can do nothing. This is a city full of priests, but they’re no better than doctors.”
The Spook frowned. “Now, as I said, I come from a different place—the County, which is a land across the sea to the east,” he explained. “I have to admit that I’ve never heard of what you’re describing. You’d have thought that news of something so odd would have reached us by now.”
“Well, you see,” said the landlord, “jibbers are new to the city. They first started to appear about a year ago. They’re like a plague. They were first sighted in the southwest and have slowly spread east. The first cases reached the city just before Christmas. Some think they’re the work of the goat mages of Kerry, who are always dabbling in dark magic. But who can say?”
We knew little about the Irish mages—only that they were in a state of constant war with some of the landowners. There was just a short reference to them in the Spook’s Bestiary. They supposedly worshipped the Old God Pan, in return for power. It was rumored that human sacrifice was involved. It was a nasty business.
“Am I right in saying that this jibber of yours is only active after dark?” inquired the Spook.
The landlord nodded.
“Well, in that case we’ll try to sort it out tonight. Would you mind if we took our rooms in advance of the job? We’d like to catch up on our sleep so that we’re fit to face this jibber of yours.”
“By all means, but if you fail to sort it out, I’ll expect to be paid for every day you stay here. I don’t spend one minute in this place after dark—I sleep at my brother’s. So, if it proves necessary, pay me in the morning.”
“That’s fair enough,” said the Spook, shaking hands with the landlord to clinch the deal. Most folk didn’t like to get too near to a spook, but this man was in serious financial trouble and grateful for my master’s help.
We each chose a room and spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon catching up on our sleep, having arranged to meet in the kitchen about an hour before dark. Mine was a troubled sleep: I had a terrifying dream.
I was in a forest. There was no moon, but the trees were glowing with an unearthly silver light. Alone and unarmed, I was crawling on all fours, searching for
something that I needed very badly—my staff. Without it, I realized, I wouldn’t survive.
It was just a few minutes to midnight, and I knew that something was coming after me then—something terrible. My mind was befuddled and I couldn’t remember what this creature was, but I knew that it had been sent by a witch. She wanted revenge for something I’d done to her.
But what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I remember things properly? Was I already under some sort of spell? Somewhere in the distance, a church bell began to strike ominously. Petrified with fear, I counted each chime.
At the third one I leaped to my feet in panic and began to run. Branches whipped at my face, brambles snatched and scratched at my legs as I sprinted desperately through the trees toward the unseen church. There was something after me now, but it wasn’t running through the under-growth; it wasn’t something on either two legs or four. I could hear the furious beating of gigantic wings.
I glanced back over my shoulder, and my blood turned to water. I was being chased by an immense black crow, and the sight of it increased my terror. It was the Morrigan, the Old God of the Celtic witches, the bloodthirsty deity who pecked out the eyes of the dying. But I knew that if only I could reach the church, I’d be safe.
Why that should be I didn’t know—churches weren’t usually places of refuge from the dark. Spooks and their apprentices preferred to rely on the tools of their trade and a sound knowledge of the practical defensive steps that could be taken. Nevertheless, I knew that I had to reach the church—or die and lose my soul to the dark.
I tripped over a root and sprawled headlong. I struggled to my knees and looked up at the black crow, which had alighted on a branch, making it creak and bend under its weight. The air shimmered in front of me, and I blinked furiously to clear my vision. When I could finally see, I was confronted by a terrible sight.
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