I set down our bags next to the hedge, took a seat, and watched the Spook pacing up and down in front of me, his boots flattening the long grass. It reminded me of our lessons in the pretty western garden behind his house, where there were no bound witches or boggarts. It was a long time since we’d done that, and I missed it. Nowadays he usually taught me in his new library or at the kitchen table.
“We’ve already agreed that we can’t use the ritual—it’s barbaric. But we need to ask ourselves some serious questions.” The Spook came to a halt and looked me straight in the eye. “I asked you what your mam looked like when she appeared to you in Malkin Tower. You said she was like a fierce angel, but then she changed into the woman I spoke to at your farm, the woman we accompanied to Greece to fight the Ordeen. I remember her well. She had an honest, open face. I sensed a tremendous strength in her and, above all, goodness. That woman would never ask you to sacrifice Alice—never mind kill her in such a cruel, inhuman way. So my conclusion is this, lad. You’ve been deceived. That wasn’t your mam. Someone or something was impersonating her.”
I could understand why the Spook said what he did. But this time his instincts had let him down. I still knew things that he didn’t. Now was the time to tell him more.
“Just before she left me, Mam turned back into that cruel angel. She’s very old, and only a very small part of her existence has been in human form. She became Mam for two reasons. One was because she loved my dad and wanted to repay him for rescuing her when she was chained to a rock, about to perish in the sun’s lethal rays. The other reason was so that she could have me, a seventh son of a seventh son. I would be her son as well as my father’s, so I would inherit some of her gifts, such as the ability to slow or halt time—the gifts that have helped us come through some dangerous situations and bind the Fiend. She had me so that I would be a weapon to be used against the Fiend. That was why I was born. She would do anything to put an end to him. And if it means killing Alice, then she would do that, too.”
“I’m still not convinced, lad.”
There was nothing for it. I had to tell him the whole truth, something I’d always hoped to avoid.
“Mam was the first lamia,” I told him. “She was the mother of them all.”
CHAPTER IV
THE UNEXPLAINED
THE Spook stared at me for a long time without saying a word. Then he turned, bowed his head, and started to walk slowly away. He’d almost reached the gate at the far end of the field before he stopped and paced back toward me.
“This seems to be a day for truths,” he said quietly. “Let’s get ourselves back to the library.”
I stood up, allowing my master to climb over the stile first, then picked up our bags and followed him miserably back to the Chipenden house.
Once there, he led the way up to the library and pointed to my usual chair at the table. I took a seat while he went to get a book from the almost-empty shelves. I knew which book it would be.
The Bestiary.
There was an entry that the Spook had made in this book, which was the only one that had survived the fire. I knew it almost word for word because it was so important and painful to me personally. He set the book down in front of me, open at the page I’d predicted. The heading was LAMIA WITCHES.
“Read the full entry—not out loud, because I remember what I wrote. I just want to be sure you know what you’re saying about your mam.”
Feeling more and more despondent, I read the account silently.
The first Lamia was a powerful enchantress of great beauty. She loved Zeus, the leader of the Old Gods, who was already married to the goddess Hera. Unwisely, Lamia then bore Zeus children. On discovering this, the jealous Hera slew all but one of these unfortunate infants. Driven insane by grief, Lamia began to kill children wherever she found them, so that streams and rivers ran red with their blood and the air trembled with the cries of distraught parents. At last the gods punished her by shifting her shape so that her lower body became sinuous and scaled like that of a serpent.
Thus changed, she now turned her attentions to young men. She would call to them from a forest glade, only her beautiful head and shoulders visible above the undergrowth. Once she had lured her victim close, she wrapped her lower body around him tightly, squeezing the breath from his helpless body as her mouth fastened upon his neck until the very last drop of blood was drained.
Lamia later had a lover called Chaemog, a spider thing that dwelled in the deepest caverns of the earth. She bore him triplets, all female, and these were the first lamia witches. On their thirteenth birthday, they quarreled with their mother and, after a terrible fight, tore off her limbs and ripped her body to pieces. They fed every bit of her, including her heart, to a herd of wild boar.
The three lamia witches reached adulthood and became feared throughout the land. They were long-lived creatures and, by the process of parthenogenesis (needing no father), each gave birth to several children. Over centuries, the race of lamia witches began to evolve, and breeding patterns—
“Are you past the third paragraph?” the Spook interrupted.
I nodded.
“Then that’s enough,” he said. “It’s a terrible tale. But according to that, Lamia was slain by her own children.”
“The information is wrong. Yes, she did quarrel with her children, but they did her no physical harm. You once told me that not everything in your Bestiary can be verified, and that some things are definitely wrong. And we make notes and corrections as we find out more, don’t we?”
“That’s true enough,” said the Spook, nodding. “Well, how did you find this out, lad?”
“Mam told me herself when we were in Greece. It’s true. After the terrible things she did, Mam repented and started to fight against the dark. Her greatest wish is to destroy the Fiend, but you have to realize that she isn’t just the woman you met at the farm. She has spent most of her long life as Lamia, and she is ruthless. She sacrificed herself to destroy the Ordeen. She loves me . . . but would ask me to sacrifice myself if it proved necessary. She is also willing to sacrifice Alice. She’ll do anything to destroy the Fiend. She really does want me to carry out that terrible ritual.”
As I said this, I wondered if I’d have been brave enough to sacrifice myself if Mam had actually asked me to. Would I be as brave as Alice?
“Despite all you say, I still find it hard to believe,” said the Spook. “I trust my instincts. The woman I met wouldn’t ask you to do that.”
“She’ll do anything to destroy the Fiend. She really does want me to carry out that terrible ritual.”
As I said this, I wondered if I’d have been brave enough to sacrifice myself if Mam had actually asked me to. Would I be as courageous as Alice?
“She’s no longer the woman you knew,” I continued. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Well, we’ll agree to differ, lad, but it changes little. You can’t carry out that ritual. So in that case, we need another plan. Let’s both get our thinking caps on and try to come up with some alternative method.”
I nodded and resolved to try—though I wasn’t optimistic. How could I hope to do better than Mam, who had lived so long and knew so much about the Fiend?
The following morning, just after dawn, I headed for the area in the western garden that we used for training. There was a dead tree, which was useful for practicing with our staffs, and a post over which I would cast my silver chain. I remembered the first time I’d managed to cast it successfully one hundred times. My master had warned me against complacency, pointing out that a witch wouldn’t oblige me by standing still; after that, I’d had to cast on the run and from a variety of angles.
Now I was competent with both chain and staff, but still practiced here three times a week in order to maintain those skills. The Spook had done the same until a few months ago.
I was surprised to find him using his staff against the trunk of the dead tree. He was driving the blade into the wood again and aga
in, almost in a fury. The sweat was pouring down his forehead, and he was breathing hard.
In fact, so great was his concentration that I stood watching him for a couple of minutes before he stepped back and looked round, as if becoming aware of my presence for the first time.
“Well, lad, that’s just about enough for one day—for me, that is. Now it’s your turn to sweat a bit. I’ll get back to the house. I’ll see you at breakfast. We need to talk again.”
With that, still panting after his exertions, he strode away through the trees. I did my routine training, and after about an hour followed him back, wondering what he wanted to say to me now.
It was a good breakfast. The boggart had done us proud. The toast was crisp and brown, and our plates were heaped high with bacon, eggs, and mushrooms.
The Spook nodded, and I nodded back; then, without further preamble, we tucked in and didn’t say a word until we’d finished every last mouthful. Only then did my master ease his chair back from the table and fix his gaze firmly upon me.
“I’m sorry, lad,” he said. “I’ve been neglecting my duties and letting you do all the work. What’s worse, I’ve not been training you.”
“It’s been a very difficult few years,” I said. “We’ve traveled a lot and faced great dangers; we’ve both been lucky to survive. Recently, you’ve needed time to recuperate and gather your strength—I know that. So there’s no need to apologize. You’ve been a good master. But for your help and training, I’d be dead by now.”
“It’s kind of you to say so, lad. But I’m going to try and make up for the past weeks. Do you remember what I said we’d be studying in your fourth year of training?”
“Yes . . . it’s something that you called the ‘unexplained’; you told me to look in the back of your Bestiary.”
“And did you do that?”
I nodded, not mentioning the fact that my master had failed to follow it up with the expected lessons.
At the end of the Spook’s book there was a short section called “Mysterious Deaths in the County.” One account told of a woman called Emily Jane Hudson, who had died under very strange circumstances. There had been puncture marks in her neck, but she hadn’t been drained of blood. Instead, the blood had been forced in between her flesh and her skin, as if to store it there. The incident had remained a mystery. Who or what had done that to her?
“So you do have an idea what you’ll be learning. It will take us right to the edge of what we know. It’s a higher level of study. Rather than me just passing on my acquired knowledge to you, we’ll be carrying out research together. We’ll hopefully be able to expand our knowledge and record what we learn. Some of it will be just speculation, but we will also search for likely causes. We’ll begin today with a journey to a location that’s mentioned in that terrible ritual—the place where you were bidden to perform it. We’re going to journey across the fells to the northeast. It’s time for me to show you the Wardstone.”
“Is it a big stone, or just the name of a hill? I remember once seeing it marked on one of your maps, but that wasn’t clear.”
“It’s a big hill and a big stone, lad. One of the highest in the County.”
“And what we see when we get there? Will that be part of our study of the unexplained?” I asked.
“Aye,” replied the Spook. “It certainly will. And I’ll tell you something else. You’ll be the first apprentice I’ve ever shown the Wardstone. Despite some deceits—or shall we call them ‘failings of trust’?—you really have become the best apprentice I’ve ever trained.”
CHAPTER V
THE WARDSTONE
WITHIN the hour we had set off from Chipenden, heading north across the fells. I was carrying both bags as well as my staff, and I also had an extra burden—a bundle of firewood tied to my back. There were no trees up there, and we planned to cook supper.
I went with mixed feelings. On one hand, it was good to be traveling with my master, who suddenly seemed invigorated and enthusiastic. I was also intrigued by the Wardstone. Was it just coincidence that it shared my name? I wondered. I remembered noticing that when I’d first spotted the place on the Spook’s map.
However, one part of me would have preferred to stay close to Chipenden. That was where Alice would go if she managed to defeat the Fiend using magic. I was desperate for news, desperate to see her again. I’d even tried using a mirror to contact her—something that would have infuriated my master. But although I’d called her name repeatedly, she hadn’t responded. Why couldn’t I reach her now? That failure made me even more worried. But I’d had no choice but to leave with the Spook.
It was good walking weather, chillier up on the fell tops, but the sun was shining and the breeze was light. There were curlews swooping down to glide low over the tufts of grass, and fresh rabbit droppings, suggesting that supper wouldn’t be too difficult to find. Out to the northwest I could see the light-blue waters of Morecambe Bay sparkling in the sunlight. We had trekked this way many times together; we would often bypass Caster, with its ancient castle, keeping well to the east. If there was a witch finder operating in the County, this was where he was usually based. And most of them believed spooks to be fair game. We dabbled with the dark, and that was as good an excuse as any to hang us.
But this time, instead of continuing past Caster, we turned directly east and went deeper into the fells than I’d ever been before. The Spook was still setting a lively pace and seemed to know exactly where he was going. By now the breeze had become a chill wind battering us from the west. Clouds were racing overhead, and I could smell rain.
“You’ve visited the Wardstone before?” I asked.
“Aye, lad, I certainly have—twice, to be exact. The first time I came as a young spook, soon after the death of my master. He’d told me a bit about it, and I was curious enough to want to see it for myself. The second time was soon after your mam wrote me that letter. You remember which one I’m talking about?”
“The one she wrote to you in Greek just after I’d been born?”
“That’s the one, lad. It stuck in my memory: I can still recite it word for word! ‘I’ve just given birth to a baby boy,’” she wrote. ‘And he’s the seventh son of a seventh son. His name is Thomas J. Ward, and he’s my gift to the County. When he’s old enough, we’ll send you word. Train him well. He’ll be the best apprentice you’ve ever had, and he’ll also be your last.’”
The final sentence made me sad, but I had to expect that unless something happened to me, I would probably be my master’s last apprentice. Once again I had a sense of things coming to an end, but I shook it off and tried to think positively. My master and I probably had years left to work together.
“I remember you telling me about it just after you’d taken me to the haunted house in Horshaw to see if I was brave enough to become your apprentice. You seemed angry about the letter.”
“It annoyed me at the time because of its presumption,” the Spook explained. “I’d never met your mam then, and I wondered just who she thought she was—to decide who my apprentice would be. Not only that. There was an element of prophecy in her letter—and as you know, I believe in free will, that we shape the future ourselves with our daily choices.”
“But that letter made you want to visit the Wardstone again? Is that right? Was it something to do with my name and the name of the hill being the same?”
“Curb your curiosity and practice a little patience; it’s a quality that’s very useful when studying the unexplained. You’ll find out when we get there, lad,” my master retorted. “Now the sun will be going down in a couple of hours, so I think we’ve gone far enough for one day. Why don’t you catch us a couple of rabbits for our supper?”
I was hungry and only too pleased to nod in agreement. The Spook found us a hollow in which to shelter from the wind, and I was glad to put down our bags and my staff and remove the bundle of wood from my back. My master was already laying the fire as I set off to hunt for our supper.
A couple of hours later, we were eating the rabbits I’d caught and cooked. We didn’t speak much, but we were both enjoying ourselves. It was just like the early days, when I first became his apprentice and we used to walk across the fells a lot. I’d been nervous about the job and sometimes scared, too. But there’d been a sense of everything just beginning. Things had seemed so simple, I realized; now everything was much more complicated. Sometimes it was just good to appreciate being alive and not worry about the more problematic things . . . though the delicious rabbits put me in mind of Alice. She usually did the hunting and cooking when we were traveling, and the thought tempered my happiness a little.
The rain began just before dawn and woke us. By then, the wind had become a gale, driving the rain almost horizontally above us so that mostly we remained dry in our hollow. But we could hear it drumming on the ground above, and I knew that the second phase of our journey to the Wardstone would be delayed.
“We’ll sleep late, lad,” said the Spook. “It’ll be wet enough up on yonder hill without turning ourselves into drowned rats before we even begin.”
It was almost noon before the rain finally stopped and we were able to continue our journey east. The wind had died away almost to nothing, but the visibility was worsening.
“I’ll carry my own bag,” the Spook told me. “The going gets difficult soon, and you’ll need the support of your staff.” He was quickly proved correct as we left what he told me was Grit Fell to follow a meandering muddy track through clumps of reddish grass.
“Keep to the path, lad,” he warned. “The ground on either side is not just soggy. There are deep pools of stagnant water, no doubt swollen by the recent heavy rain. It’s worse where the grass grows tallest.”
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