CHAPTER XXXV
THE CHIPENDEN SPOOK
LATE in the afternoon the day after we laid the Spook to rest, the bell rang at the withy trees.
I found a red-faced farmer in muddy boots waiting for me there, nervous and frightened and badly needing help.
“My name’s Morris—Brian Morris from Ruff Lane Farm just south of Grimsargh. There’s a boggart made its home in my barn,” he told me. “It’s throwing great big rocks at the house. One went right through the kitchen window. Luckily my wife had moved away from the sink to tend to the baby. Had she been standing there, she’d have been killed for sure.”
It was routine spook’s business, so I nodded and answered in what I hoped was a reassuring tone. “It sounds like you’re under attack from a stone chucker. Get back home as quickly as possible—you and your family should leave the house. Stay with a neighbor. I’ll follow as soon as I collect my things. With luck, I’ll sort it out tonight. Otherwise two nights at the most, and it’ll be gone.”
“No disrespect, lad, but I’d prefer it if your master attended to my problem.”
“That won’t be possible,” I told him firmly. “Unfortunately John Gregory is dead. My name is Mister Ward, and I’m the Chipenden Spook now. I’m offering you my help.” I stared hard at him until he lowered his eyes.
“I won’t be able to pay you right away,” he said. “Times are hard.”
“After the next harvest will do,” I replied. “Now be on your way. Get your family out and leave the rest to me. I’ll deal with it—don’t worry.”
He turned and, with a barely perceptible nod of acceptance, trudged off into the distance.
I went back to the house to collect my bag, not forgetting a small parcel of cheese for the journey.
My life as the Chipenden Spook had begun.
EPILOGUE
ONCE again, I’ve written most of this from memory, just using my notebook when necessary.
I am no longer John Gregory’s apprentice. Now I am the Chipenden Spook, and I must do my best to keep the County safe from ghosts, ghasts, boggarts, witches, and all manner of creatures from the dark—some, perhaps, as yet unknown. For, as my master taught me, life as a spook is one long process of learning.
Out there in the County, many incidents are, as yet, unexplained. We can learn from the past by using the legacy of knowledge left to us by former spooks, but the dark is always throwing up new challenges and surprises, and we must adapt and learn to counter any new threat.
Although I am no longer an apprentice, there is one local spook who will still be able to contribute to my learning. Judd Brinscall has offered his aid and experience, should I require it. I am practicing regularly to enhance my skills with staff and chain, the main weapons of a spook. As for the scar on my face, it is greatly improved. There is now just a faint white diagonal line running down from my eye. So Grimalkin’s magic did its work.
That is the difference between me and previous generations of spooks. I am prepared to accept the use of magic, but only if the ends justify it and there is no cost to others. No doubt that is because of the lamia blood coursing through my veins. And I have another potent ally to help me should I require it—the boggart.
It had been the Spook’s boggart; now it is mine.
But the sword will remain under my master’s coffin. I am sick of killing. Now I will concentrate on dealing with the dark in the County.
As for my master, John Gregory, I will never forget what he did for me. In the eyes of most priests, spooks are no better than witches and cannot be interred in holy ground. Some are buried as close as possible to the boundary of a churchyard. But I didn’t want that for my master.
We buried the Spook in what I guessed must be one of his favorite locations, next to the seat in the western garden—the place where we had often sat for my lessons. It was full of happy memories, with a view of the fells in the distance and the sound of birdsong filling the air. I was the thirtieth and last of his apprentices, and he must have spent many satisfying years here as he trained boys to fight the dark.
One day, perhaps, I will have an apprentice of my own. Maybe this is the place where I will also be buried.
I had the local mason craft a gravestone, and on it carve the following:
HERE LIETH
JOHN GREGORY OF CHIPENDEN,
THE GREATEST OF THE COUNTY SPOOKS
It was a fitting epitaph. What I had ordered to be written there was true; there was no exaggeration. For more than sixty years, my master had fought the dark and kept the County safe. He had always done his duty, and done it well, displaying great skill and courage. Finally he had laid down his life in order that the Fiend might be destroyed.
But life goes on. Last week I had good news from Jack. Ellie has given birth to a healthy baby boy. They’ve called him Matthew, and now Jack has a son to help with the farm when he is older.
My job now is to keep the County safe from the dark.
If I achieve half as much as my master, I will be satisfied.
THOMAS J. WARD
CREDITS
COVER ART © 2014 BY PATRICK ARRASMITH
COVER DESIGN BY CHAD W. BECKERMAN AND PAUL ZAKRIS
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
The Last Apprentice: Fury of the Seventh Son (Book 13)
Copyright © 2013 by Joseph Delaney
First published in 2013 in Great Britain by The Bodley Head, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, under the title The Spook’s Revenge. First published in 2014 in the United States by Greenwillow Books.
The right of Joseph Delaney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Patrick Arrasmith
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Delaney, Joseph, (date.)
[Spook’s revenge]
Fury of the seventh son / by Joseph Delaney ; illustrated by Patrick Arrasmith.
pages cm. — (The last apprentice ; book 13)
“Greenwillow Books.”
“First published in 2013 in Great Britain by The Bodley Head, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, under the title The Spook’s Revenge”—Copyright page.
Summary: “Thomas Ward faces his ultimate test as he and his master prepare to deal with the Fiend once and for all”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-219231-8 (trade hardcover) [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Devil—Fiction. 3. Apprentices—Fiction. 4. Horror stories.]
I. Arrasmith, Patrick, illustrator. II. Title.
PZ7.D373183Fu 2014
[Fic] —dc23 2013045608
EPub Edition February 2014 ISBN 9780062192332
14 15 16 17 18 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
Greenwillow Books
Dedication
FOR MARIE
Contents
Dedication
The Spook’s Tale
Chapter I - The Dead Apprentice
Chapter II - The Witch’s Lair
Chapter III - A Spook’s Bones
Chapter IV - The Blood Dish
Chapter V - The Silver Chain
Alice’s Tale
Mouldheels and Maggots
Grimalkin’s Tale
The Witch Assassin
The Gallery of Villains
Mother Malkin
Bony Lizzie and Tusk
The Bane
Morgan
Marcia
Golgoth
Tibb
Wurmalde
Grimalkin
Bloodeye
The Fiend
Credits
Copyright
THE HORRORS BEGIN
THE LAST APPRENTICE books tell the continuing story of Tom Ward’s apprenticeship to Old Gregory, the County Spook who rids the land of boggarts, ghosts, and witches. Over the course of his journey, Tom has been befriended by Alice Deane, a girl raised by witches. He has also survived an attack by the witch assassin Grimalkin.
In The Spook’s Tale and Other Horrors, readers will learn about other adventures experienced by these people in Tom’s life. Long before he was Tom Ward’s master, John Gregory had his first confrontation with the dangers of the dark. Alice Deane relates what happened when she journeyed into the dangerous, witch- infested district of Pendle in search of Tom’s kidnapped family. And Grimalkin reveals the twisted road that the led her to become a witch assassin.
THE SPOOK’S TALE
SOME say that John Gregory is the greatest of the County spooks. Others believe that he only prepared the way for the one who was to follow. What is certain is that from an early age, he had true courage and the ability to overcome his greatest fears.
Before becoming the Spook, John Gregory faced many terrors: a malevolent witch, a bone-snatching boggart, and a tormented ghast. “The Spook’s Tale” is his own account of how he took the first steps toward becoming a spook’s apprentice.
CHAPTER I
The Dead Apprentice
WHEN I was really young, perhaps no older than six or seven, I had a terrible nightmare. It began as a pleasant dream. I was sitting on a hearth rug in the small front room of our cramped row house in Horshaw. I was gazing into a coal fire, watching the sparks flicker and dance before they disappeared up the chimney. My mam was also in the room. She was knitting. I could hear the rhythmical click-click of her needles, and I felt really happy and safe. But then, over the noise of the knitting needles, I heard the dull thud of approaching footsteps. At first I thought they were outside, where my dad and brothers were working, but with a growing sense of unease I realized they were coming from the cellar. Who could possibly be down in our cellar? The sound of the heavy boots on stone grew louder. They were climbing the steps toward the kitchen, and I knew that, whatever it was, it was coming to get me. The air suddenly developed a distinct chill—not the cold that winter brings; this was something else.
In the nightmare I tried to call out to my mam for help, but I couldn’t make a sound. I was mute and paralyzed, frozen to the spot. The boots came nearer and nearer, but my mam just carried on sitting and knitting while my terror slowly increased. The fire flickered and died in the grate and the room grew colder and darker with each ominous approaching footstep. I was terrified, panic and dread building within me by the second.
A dark shadow shaped like a man entered the room. He crossed to where I cowered by the fire, and before I had a chance to move or cry out, he picked me up and put me under his arm. Then he took me back into the kitchen and began to descend the cellar steps, each clump of his big boots taking me deeper and deeper. I knew that I was having a nightmare and realized I had to wake myself up before I was taken into the absolute darkness at the foot of the cellar steps.
Struggling and straining with all my might, I somehow managed to do it just in time. I awoke, panting with fear, my brow wet with sweat, trembling at the thought of what had almost happened.
But my nightmare didn’t happen just once. It came to me time and time again over the course of several years. After a while I had to tell someone, so I confided in my brother Paul. I was afraid that he might laugh, that he might mock me for being so terrified of a dream. But to my surprise his eyes widened, and with a shaking voice, he revealed that he had been having exactly the same nightmare! At first I could scarcely believe him—but it was true! We had both been dreaming the same dream. In some ways it was a comfort, but what could this strange coincidence mean? Together we reached an important agreement.
If you were in the dream and managed to escape it, you had to wake your brother, because he might still be trapped in that nightmare, awaiting his turn to be taken down the cellar steps. Many’s the night when I was sleeping peacefully, not dreaming at all, and my brother would shake me by the shoulder. I’d wake up blazing with anger, ready to thump him. But then he’d whisper in my ear, his eyes wide, his face terrified, his bottom lip trembling:
“I’ve just had the dream!”
I was instantly glad I hadn’t thumped him—otherwise next time he might not wake me when I was having the nightmare and needed his help!
Although we told ourselves this was just a dream, there was one thing that terrified us both. We felt absolutely sure that, if we were ever taken into the dark at the foot of the cellar steps, we would die in our sleep and be trapped in that nightmare forever!
One night as I lay awake, I heard disturbing noises coming from the cellar. At first I thought I was in the dream, but slowly, with a shudder of fear, I realized these were waking sounds, not dreaming sounds. Someone was digging into the soft earth of the cellar floor with a shovel. I felt that strange unnatural coldness again and heard boots climbing the stone steps, just as they did in my nightmare. Covering my ears to block out the sounds was hopeless, because they didn’t stop. Eventually, scared almost witless and weeping in distress, I screamed out into the darkness.
That wasn’t the only time it happened, and my family’s patience started to wear thin. Another night, angered by the fact that I’d woken them all up again, my dad dragged me down the cellar steps, threw me into the darkness, and nailed the door shut, leaving me alone and trapped there.
“Please, Dad! Please. Don’t leave me here in the dark!” I pleaded.
“You’ll stay there until you learn to stop waking us up!” he retorted. “We’ve all got work in the morning. Think of your brothers and your poor mam. It’s about time you grew up!”
“Please, Dad! Give me another chance!” I begged, but he didn’t relent.
He was a good man but also hard—that’s why he put me in that dark, terrifying cellar. He didn’t realize what I could see and hear: things other people couldn’t, things that would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and your heart hammer hard enough to break out of your chest. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it was a consequence of what I was. I was the seventh son and my dad had been a seventh son before me. For me, the world was a very different place. I could both see and hear the dead; sometimes I could even feel them. As I sat on the cold cellar floor, I heard things approaching me in the dark, seeking me out with cold fingers and whispers, taking forms that only I could see.
I shivered with a coldness that went right through my bones and watched as a figure emerged from the darkness, carrying something over his shoulder. He had big boots and looked like a miner. At first I thought it was a sack of coal he was carrying, but then, to my horror, I saw that it was the limp body of a woman. I watched the tears running down the man’s face as he dropped the lifeless form into the shallow pit he had dug and started to cover it with earth. As he worked, the miner gasped for air, his lungs destroyed by years of breathing in the coal dust.
It was only later that a neighbor told me the whole story. The miner mistakenly believed his wife had betrayed him by seeing another man, so he’d killed the woman he truly loved. It was a sad tale, and my pity for those who’d died so long ago slowly helped me to overcome my fear.
I didn’t know it then, but that was my first step toward becoming a sp
ook. I faced my fear, and slowly it ebbed away. Confronting the dark and overcoming his fear is what every spook first needs to do.
My name is John Gregory, and I’ve worked at my trade for more than sixty years. I protect the County against ghosts, ghasts, witches, and boggarts. Especially witches and boggarts. If anything goes bump in the night, I deal with it.
Mine’s a lonely and difficult life, and I’ve been close to death more times than I care to remember. Now, as I approach the end of my time on earth, I’m training Tom Ward, who’ll be my last apprentice.
So here’s an account of my own early days. How it began for me. How I lost one vocation and gained another. How I took the first tentative step toward becoming a spook’s apprentice myself.
I left home when I was twelve. Not as an apprentice to a spook—mine was a very different vocation then. I was going to travel to the seminary at Houghton and train there for the priesthood.
It was a bright, crisp day in late October, and I was looking forward to the long walk and eagerly anticipating the beginning of my new life.
“It’s a proud day for me, son,” my poor old dad said, struggling for each breath. By then the coal dust had started to clog his lungs, too, and each month they became more damaged. “It’s what every devout father wants—that one of his sons should have a vocation for the priesthood. I look forward to the day when you return to this house to give me your blessing.”
My mam wasn’t there to see me leave, as she’d already set off for work. As for my brothers, four of them had left home for good. Of those, one was already dead: He’d been drowned while working on a canal barge that plied the route between Priestown and Caster. The two still living at home had left the house long before dawn. Andrew was an apprentice locksmith. Paul had already begun working down the mine.
The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Page 271