“What problems?” I asked.
“Nothing’s happened near the farm, apart from the usual,” Jack said, gesturing toward Hangman’s Hill. “But on the far side of Topley village, all hell’s broken loose. It’s been like that for weeks. Ghosts, boggarts, witches, you name it. There’ve been sightings of ghosts just outside the churchyard, and a boggart has taken up residence at Beck Cottage. The owners stayed on less than a week after it took over. Now it’s becoming dangerous—it keeps throwing stones at passersby. We’ve seen a lot of witches, too. Small groups have passed through, heading north, stealing and threatening folk as they go.”
No doubt the witches were heading for the Wardstone to join other supporters of the Fiend. But this increased level of activity from the dark made me wonder. Was it because of the coming crisis at Halloween? Were dark powers gathering everywhere?
“I’ve actually come to ask for James’s help with a big problem we’ve got to the north,” I said, “but I’ll certainly find time to sort that boggart before we leave.” I reckoned I could spare an hour or two to deal with it before I returned to Chipenden.
“You said ‘we.’ Do you intend to take James with you?”
I nodded. “That’s if he’ll agree to help.”
“You’ll be taking him into danger? You expect him to help you fight the dark in some way?” The smile was gone from Jack’s face, replaced by a growing anger. “Don’t you think he’s suffered enough recently?”
“Yes, he’s suffered. We’ve all suffered in one way or another. But the whole County and beyond is facing something much worse. And don’t think that you’ll be safe here, Jack,” I warned. “There’s danger ahead, and it’s got to be faced, even if it takes the lives of both James and me.”
The anger faded from Jack’s face. I saw instead a mixture of fear and sadness as he stared at the ground.
“Ellie’s having another baby,” he said at last. “After what happened at Pendle, I thought we’d never add to our family. But she’s nervous, Tom, so play down the danger, won’t you?”
Ellie had been pregnant when she and Jack and Mary were captured by the witches. The trauma of their abduction had caused her to lose what would have been her second child.
“Of course I will, Jack—and congratulations!”
He beamed at me and clapped me on the shoulder before leading me toward the house. The forge lay just beyond the barn, but I couldn’t see James at work there.
“James is repairing farm machinery on the other side of Topley,” Jack said, reading my thoughts. “He’ll be back before dark, most likely in time for the evening meal. I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell him what’s needed while we’re dining—it will only upset Ellie. She gets tired and we go to bed early most nights, so you’ll get your chance to talk then, out of her earshot. I’ll break it to her gently once we’ve gone to bed. Will you be all right sleeping on the couch downstairs?”
“Of course I will, but are you sure? Will Ellie be happy with that? I know having a spook’s apprentice around makes you all nervous. I had planned to be away by dusk.”
“Ellie will be fine, and so will I, Tom. We’ll manage this time. Besides, James will be more ready for bed than a long journey. We’ll survive until morning, don’t you worry.”
I wondered why Jack had changed his mind about me staying in the farmhouse after dark. Was it because of the danger we all faced? Maybe it was because he thought he might never see me or James again and didn’t want to turn me out on what might be our last meeting.
I turned to see that Ellie had come out to greet me. I noticed that her corn-colored hair was lighter now; the recent years had leached something of the glow from it. There were also faint lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. But when she smiled, you realized how lucky Jack was to have a wife like her. I had a sudden tightness in my throat at the thought of losing Alice, but with a surge of anger I thrust it away from me.
“Oh, Tom! It’s so good to see you!” Ellie gave me a warm hug. “Mary! Mary! Tom’s here! Come and see your uncle!” she shouted.
A little girl came running through the doorway to stare up at me with big round eyes. She bore no resemblance to the dirty, terrified child I’d seen clutching her mother in Malkin Tower two years earlier.
“Hello, Mary,” I said with a smile.
“Hello, Uncle Tom. Have you come to kill the bog?”
“She means the boggart that’s been throwing stones,” Ellie explained. “She can’t stop talking about it.”
“Hopefully I won’t have to kill it,” I told the child. “Sometimes you can talk a boggart into moving on.”
“Can I come and watch? I want to hear it speak.”
“I’m not allowed to take other people with me when I go to deal with boggarts,” I told her. “Most don’t talk, but if this one does, I’ll remember every word and repeat it back to you. Will that do?”
Mary smiled and nodded.
I smiled back, then glanced quickly at my brother and his wife. They were a happy family. I’d almost forgotten how pleasant it was to spend time in their company. Then a wave of sadness washed over me. I might die in the coming battle. I might never see them again.
James came back just in time for supper, just as Jack had predicted, and he shook my hand warmly. He looked strong and fit—his job no doubt kept him that way. He was as tall as Jack, but much more muscular. His nose had been broken at one time and not properly reset, so that it was squashed against his face. But despite that, he was still handsome in a roguish way, and smiles came to his face very easily.
I did as Jack asked and didn’t mention the real reason for my visit, even when James asked me outright.
“What brings you home, Tom? Anything special, or are you just passing through?”
I swallowed a mouthful of hotpot to give me time to think. “I hear you’ve been having some local problems with the dark,” I told him. “Tomorrow I’m going to try and sort out that boggart the other side of Topley.”
Jack gave me a grateful smile.
“Tom’s going to talk to it!” Mary announced.
“Of course he is, love,” Ellie told her warmly. “Most things in this world can be solved by talking. It just takes a little patience, that’s all—something that most men lack.”
I smiled at Ellie, wishing that were really true. Could we talk the servants of the Fiend out of supporting their master come Halloween? It would be easier to hold back the tide.
CHAPTER XXVI
NOBODY WILL BE SAFE
WHEN Jack and Ellie went upstairs, James rose from the table. “Come and look at the forge, Tom,” he suggested. “It’s changed a bit since the last time you saw it.”
It gave me the perfect excuse to talk to him alone. He lit a lantern and led me across the yard, then proudly showed off his new equipment: two big new vises, an anvil, and rows and rows of specialized tools hanging from hooks on the wall.
“I love this job,” he told me. “There’s a lot of satisfaction to be had in doing a job well and providing a service at a reasonable price. People appreciate that. The other local smith has retired now, and I’ve almost more work than I can handle.”
I nodded. “You’ve done well, James. But I didn’t give you the whole story because Jack doesn’t want to upset Ellie. I’m here to ask you a favor. Remember when you led the charge against the witches on Pendle Hill? Well, something similar is afoot, and we need your help again.”
I explained what had been going on and how there would be a violent struggle at Halloween between us and the forces of the dark. Jack’s face became grim as he listened. Twice he shook his head.
“It sounds bad, Tom, but I’m not sure that I can help. I did it last time because my family was in danger, but this is different. The crops haven’t been too good these last few years—the yield’s been low—and some of the cattle had to be put down recently because of foot rot. Things are tough. Jack and Ellie need me to keep the wolf from the door. Can’t you get the mili
tary involved?”
I shook my head. “Soldiers don’t think much of spooks,” I told him. “I don’t think they’d help, and they certainly wouldn’t be prepared to fight alongside our witch allies. They would probably consider both sides to be their enemies. Early this year a large patrol of soldiers was killed by servants of the Fiend near Todmorden. Soldiers aren’t suited to that sort of battle.” I had already discussed this idea with the Spook, and we had decided it wouldn’t help to get the military involved. “Whether you help us or not is up to you, James.”
“I’m just not sure, Tom. . . .”
“There is one thing you should consider. Those thugs who kidnapped you—they weren’t just robbers. They were under orders from the dark, no doubt from the Fiend himself. The intention was to hurt you to put pressure on me. I’m sorry, James,” I added guiltily, “but that could happen again. Not just to you, but to Jack, Ellie, and little Mary. If we do not prevail at Halloween, nobody will be safe. I promised my master that I’d ask you, and now I have. I must confess that at first I was reluctant to drag you into this; I didn’t want to put you in danger again. But it’s desperate times. . . . Anyway, as I said, it’s your decision, James, and I will respect that.”
“When are you going back?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’m off to deal with that boggart now—it’s a thing more easily done in the dark.”
Despite the coming battle, routine spook’s business still had to go on. The boggart would eventually kill somebody if I didn’t sort it out. It was my duty to do so.
“Right, Tom,” James said with a sigh. “Let me think it over. I’ll give you my decision tomorrow.”
The boggart proved uncooperative.
Talking it through didn’t seem to work. You can sometimes persuade such a creature to leave the area, but this one was stubborn.
Like most other types of boggart, stone chuckers spend most of their time invisible—just as well, because they are very ugly, and have six arms. In the first year of my apprenticeship, my master was almost killed by one that had taken up residence in a farmhouse near Adlington.
I could have tried to intimidate it by laying lines of salt and iron around the farm. But that doesn’t always work, and anyway I had no time to spare. So although it was risky, I went up against it head to head. It was armed with rocks, while I had salt in my left hand and iron filings in my right.
My aim was good. The two clouds of salt and iron came together perfectly to slay the boggart. All that was left of it was a stinky puddle of slime on the floor. I came away with a lump the size of an egg on my forehead, but I’d gotten the better of it and was still alive.
I was settled on the couch back at the farm soon after midnight. And, despite a thumping headache, I eventually got sleep.
I was woken early by Jack setting off to do his chores and Ellie cooking breakfast. I sat down to a big plateful of toast and scrambled eggs. Mary was already at the table, spooning porridge into her mouth.
“What did the bog say?” she asked.
“Not a word.” I smiled at her. “We fought, and I won. The bog’s gone.”
“Uncle Tom won!” Mary cried to her mother.
“Of course he did, love. I never doubted that he would. That’s his job and he’s good at it.”
Ellie was smiling, but as James came in, the smile slipped from her face. One glance told us both what his decision was. In one hand he had his big blacksmith’s hammer; in the other was a traveling bag.
“I’m coming with you, Tom,” he said, confirming what we’d already guessed.
Within the hour James and I were saying our farewells. Jack shook my hand and patted me on the shoulder. “Take care, Tom. Take care. Come back safely, you two.”
Ellie gave James a big hug, and when they broke apart, tears were streaming down her face.
As we set off, leaving the farm behind, I wondered if I’d ever see it again.
And I wondered if I was taking my brother to his death.
Two days before Halloween, we met at dusk in the kitchen of the Spook’s house. I had escorted the members of our small gathering through the garden so that they would not be ripped to shreds by the boggart.
I suspect that even in his wildest dreams my master had not foreseen a situation where such a mixed company would be seated around his table, their eyes shining in the candlelight.
The Spook and I had grown used to Grimalkin’s presence, and Judd and James were no problem. It was Mab, the young leader of the Mouldheels, and a sullen witch with dirty fingernails called Fancy who probably taxed my master the most.
“The first thing to decide is where we should gather our forces,” he said.
“Need we gather at all?” asked Fancy. “Best to attack at once from many directions!”
I could smell her foul breath all the way across the big table, and I began to suspect that it was dried blood rather than dirt under her long fingernails. But she was the leader of a large group from the Deane witch clan, and she had to be tolerated. We needed every ally we could get.
“No!” said Grimalkin emphatically. “We need to combine our strength and focus it. We should be like a spear point. We need to penetrate to wherever our enemies are holding the body of the Fiend. John Gregory and Tom Ward have put forward an idea that seems sound to me. We will cut the Fiend into as many pieces as possible, and scatter, each of us taking one. We can hide them or, even better, do as I have done—keep each part with us and defend it to the death. If this does not put an end to him, at least it will delay any attempt to restore him to the power he once was. Have you attempted to scry the outcome?” She had turned her gaze upon Mab Mouldheel, who was seated on her left.
Mab delighted in being the best scryer in the whole of Pendle, and her pretty face broke into a smile at that tacit acknowledgment of her status by Grimalkin, who had good scrying abilities of her own. One downside of having Mab with us, though, was the stink of her unwashed bare feet, which was even worse than Fancy’s foul breath.
“I have.” She beamed. “But things are unclear. I know that there will be many deaths on both sides. It is highly likely that at least one of us will be slain. Would you like to know the names so you can prepare yourselves?”
“Keep your dark thoughts to yourself,” growled the Spook angrily. “Speak not of such things while you’re under my roof.”
Mab smiled at him sweetly. “As you wish, John Gregory, but I would add this. The decisions we make around this table will further shape the outcome of the battle. Once those decisions have been made, I will scry again. I will then reveal to all the likely outcome of the battle. If anyone sitting here wishes to know if they will or will not be numbered among the dead, let them come to me privately and I will tell them.”
“So it’s agreed,” my master went on. “We assemble in one place, concentrate our forces, and strike at our enemy’s flank like a sharp spear driving toward its heart, which is the Fiend.”
For a moment Fancy opened her mouth as if to protest, but Grimalkin gave her such a savage glare that she immediately closed it again. Everyone around the table, including Fancy, then nodded in agreement.
“Where’s the best place to assemble?” I asked. It seemed to me that wherever we chose, our enemies would either spy us with ease or use dark magic to find us.
“Just south of Clough Pike?” suggested the Spook.
“It’s as good a place as any,” replied Grimalkin. “Wherever we meet, you can be sure that our enemies will discover it and set ambushes for us. So I will take a small party of Malkins with me to clear the way.”
“I’d like to say something about the timing.” James spoke for the first time, his deep voice rumbling across the table. “Before, on Pendle Hill, we failed to stop the summoning of the Fiend into the world because we arrived too late. It had already been done. We must get the timing right.”
It was a very good point. With the help of Mam’s sisters, the flying lamia witches, we had eventually won the batt
le and disrupted the gathering of the witch clans on Pendle. But we had certainly arrived too late.
“I’ll attempt to scry it,” Mab muttered.
“You sound doubtful,” Grimalkin said, raising her eyebrows.
“If Alice and Lukrasta try to cloak the information, it may prove difficult,” she replied.
“You’re the only one who can do it. I believe you will be successful!”
Mab almost glowed at more praise from the witch assassin. I realized that Grimalkin had achieved her purpose—given something for Mab to live up to. The witch would now push herself to the limits to get that vital information.
Soon after that, the witches took their leave. I escorted them to the edge of the garden while Grimalkin headed for her usual place near the boggart stones.
“Take great care in the battle, Tom,” Mab warned. “For you, life and death are in the balance. And if you manage to survive, even greater risks await you soon afterward. There are three times when you are likely to die: during the battle, immediately following it, and finally, facing a powerful adversary.”
“Thanks for those cheery thoughts, Mab,” I told her sarcastically. None of that filled me with confidence, so I quickly banished her words from my mind.
“No offense, Tom. You know I like you. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would I? I wouldn’t rely too much on that rusty sword that Grimalkin gave you, either.”
I stood watching the two witches as they headed away from Chipenden. I was seething with anger. I knew that Grimalkin wouldn’t have told Mab about the sword—she had scryed it for herself. Could nothing be kept from her?
However, she had already admitted that Alice and Lukrasta could deny her. This might pose a problem. We needed to know the time of the ritual.
As for her warnings about my death, I knew that the enemy outnumbered us many times over. There was no guarantee that we would win, so it was no use worrying about it.
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