"The Spook's Curse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Joseph)

CHAPTER 16

A Pit For Alice At last, with the sun once more sinking into the west, the fells were directly ahead and soon we were climbing up through the trees towards the Spook’s house, taking the path that avoided Chipenden village.

I halted just short of the front gate. The Spook was about twenty paces further back, staring up at the house as if he were seeing it for the first time.

I turned to face Alice. ‘You’d better go,’ I said.

Alice nodded. There was the Spook’s pet boggart to worry about. It guarded the house and grounds. One step inside the gate and she’d be in great danger.

‘Where will you stay?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you worry about me none. And don’t go thinking I belong to the Bane either. I ain’t stupid. Have to summon him twice more before that happens, don’t I? The weather’s not that cold yet, so I’ll stay close by for a few days. Maybe in what’s left of Lizzie’s house. Then I’ll most likely go east to Pendle. What else can I do?’

Alice still had family in Pendle but they were witches. Despite what she said, Alice belonged to the dark now. That’s where she’d feel most comfortable.

Without another word she turned and walked away into the gloom. Sadly, I watched her until she’d disappeared from sight, then I turned and opened the gate.

I unlocked the front door and the Spook followed me inside. I led the way to the kitchen, where a fire was blazing in the grate and the table was set for two. The boggart had been expecting us. It was a light supper, just two bowls of pea soup and thick slices of bread. I was hungry after our long walk so I tucked in straight away.

For a while the Spook just sat there staring at his bowl of steaming hot soup but then he picked up a slice of bread and dunked it in.

‘It’s been hard, lad. And it’s good to be home,’ he said.

I was so surprised that he was speaking again that I almost fell off my chair.

‘Are you feeling better?’ I asked.

‘Aye, lad, better than I did. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be right as rain. Your mam’s a good woman. Nobody in the County knows their potions better.’

‘I didn’t think you’d remember anything,’ I said. ‘You seemed distant. Almost like you were sleepwalking.’

“That’s what it was like, lad. I could see and hear everything but it didn’t seem real. It was just like I was in a nightmare. And I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t seem to find the words. It was only when I was outside, standing there looking up at this house, that I found myself again. Have you still got the key to the Silver Gate?’

Surprised, I reached into my left breeches pocket and pulled out the key. I held it out to the Spook.

‘Caused a lot of trouble, this,’ he said, turning it over in his hand. ‘But you did well, all things considered.’

I smiled, feeling happier than I had in days, but when my master spoke again, his voice was harsh.

‘Where’s the girl?’ he snapped.

‘Probably not too far away,’ I admitted.

‘Well, we’ll deal with her later.’

All through supper I thought of Alice. What would she find to eat? Well, she was good at catching rabbits so she wouldn’t starve – that was one thing sorted out. However, in the spring, after Bony Lizzie had kidnapped a child, the men from the village had set fire to her house and the ruin wouldn’t provide much shelter on an autumn night. Still, as Alice had said, the weather still hadn’t turned cold. No, her biggest threat was from the Spook.

As it turned out, it was the last mild night of the year: the following morning there was a distinct chill in the air. The Spook and I sat on the bench staring towards the fells, the wind getting stronger. The leaves were falling in earnest. The summer was well and truly over.

I’d already got my notebook out but the Spook seemed in no hurry to start the lesson. He wasn’t recovered from his ordeal with the Quisitor. During breakfast he’d said little and spent most of the time staring into space, as if deep in thought.

I was the one who finally broke the silence. ‘What does the Bane want now that it’s free? What will it do to the County?’

‘That’s easily answered,’ said the Spook. ‘Above all it wants to grow bigger and more powerful. Then there will be no limit to the terror it will cause. It will cast a shadow of evil over the County. And no living thing will be able to hide from it. It will take blood and read minds until its powers are complete. It will see through the eyes of people who can walk in daylight while it’s forced to hide in the dark somewhere underground. Whereas before it just controlled the priests in the cathedral and extended its influence into Priestown, now nowhere in the County will be safe.

‘Caster could well be the next to suffer. But first the Bane might just pick on some small hamlet and press everyone to death as a warning, just to show what it can do! That was the way it controlled Heys and the kings who ruled before him. Disobedience meant a whole community would be pressed.’

‘Mam told me that it’ll be looking for Alice,’ I said miserably.

‘That’s right, lad! Your foolish friend Alice. It needs her to regain its strength. She’s twice given it her blood, so while she remains free she’s fast on her way to becoming totally under its control. If nothing happens to stop it, she’ll become part of the Bane and have hardly any will left of her own. It could move her, use her just as easily as I can bend my little finger. The Bane knows this – it’ll be doing all it can to feed from her again. It’ll be searching for her now.’

‘But she’s strong,’ I protested. ‘And anyway, I thought the Bane was afraid of women. We both met it in the catacombs when I was trying to rescue you. It had shape-shifted into you in order to trick me.’

‘So the rumours were true – it had learned to take on a physical form down there.’

‘Yes, but when Alice spat at it, it ran off. Perhaps she could just keep doing that.’

‘Yes, the Bane does find it harder to control a woman than a man. Women make it nervous because they’re wilful creatures and often unpredictable. But once it’s drunk the blood of a female all that changes. It’ll be after Alice now and give her no peace. It’ll worm its way into her dreams and show her the things she can have – the things that can be hers just for the asking -until finally she’ll think there’s a need to summon it again. No doubt that cousin of mine was under the Bane’s control. Otherwise he’d never have betrayed me like that.’

The Spook scratched at his beard. ‘Aye, the Bane will grow and grow and there’ll be little to stop it working its evil through others until everything becomes rotten in the County. That’s what happened to the Little People until, finally, desperate measures were called for. We need to find out exactly how the Bane was bound; even better, how it can be killed. That’s why we need to go to Heysham. There’s a big barrow there, a burial mound, and the bodies of Heys and his sons are in stone graves nearby.

‘As soon as I’m strong enough, that’s where we’re going. As you know, those who suffer violent deaths sometimes have trouble moving on from this world. So we’ll visit those graves. If we’re lucky, a ghost or two might still linger there. Maybe even the ghost of Naze, who did the binding. That might well be our only hope because, to be honest, lad, at the moment I haven’t a clue how we’re going to bring this to an end.’

With those words the Spook hung his head and looked really sad and worried. I’d never seen him so low.

‘Have you been there before?’ I asked, wondering why the ghosts hadn’t been given a talking to and asked to move on.

‘Aye, lad, just once. I went there as an apprentice. My master was there to deal with a troublesome sea wraith that had been haunting the shore. That done, on the hill above the cliffs we passed the graves and I knew there was something there because what had been a warm summer’s night suddenly became very cold. When my master kept on walking, I asked him why he wasn’t stopping to do something.

‘ “Leave well enough alone,” he told me. “It’s a bother to nobody. Besides, some ghosts stay on this earth because they’ve a task to perform. So it’s best to leave ‘em to it.” I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but as usual he was right.’

I tried to imagine the Spook as an apprentice. He’d have been a lot older than me because he’d trained as a priest first. I wondered what his own master had been like, a man who would take on an apprentice so old.

‘Anyway,’ said the Spook, ‘we’ll be going to Heysham very soon, but before that happens there’s something else that has to be done. Know what it is?’

I shivered. I knew what he was going to say.

‘We have to deal with the girl, so we need to know where she’s hiding. My guess would be in the ruin of Lizzie’s house. What do you think?’ the Spook demanded.

I was going to tell him that I disagreed but he stared at me hard until I was forced to drop my gaze to the ground. I couldn’t lie to him.

‘That’s where she’d probably stay,’ I admitted.

‘Well, lad, she can’t stay there for much longer. She’s a danger to everyone. She’ll have to go into a pit. And the sooner the better. So you’d better start

I looked at him, hardly able to believe what I was hearing.

‘Look, lad, it’s hard but it’s got to be done. It’s our duty to make the County safe for others and that girl will always be a threat.’

‘But that’s not fair!’ I said. ‘She saved your life! Back in the spring she saved my life too. Everything she’s done has turned out all right in the end. She means well.’

The Spook held up his hand to silence me. ‘Don’t waste your breath!’ he commanded, his expression very stern. ‘I know that she stopped the burning. I know that she saved lives, including my own. But she released the Bane and I’d rather be dead than have that foul thing loose and free to do its mischief. So follow me and let’s get it over with!’

‘But if we killed the Bane Alice would be free! She’d have another chance!’

The Spook’s face reddened with anger, and when he spoke there was a sharp edge of menace to his voice. ‘A witch who uses familiar magic is always dangerous. In time, in her maturity, far more deadly than those who use blood or bone. But usually it’s just a bat or a toad – something small and weak that gradually grows in power. But think what that girl’s done! The Bane of all things! And she thinks the Bane is bound to her will!

‘She’s clever and reckless and there’s nothing that she wouldn’t dare. And yes, arrogant too! But even with the Bane dead, it wouldn’t be over. If she’s allowed to grow into a woman, unchecked, she’ll be the most dangerous witch the County has ever seen! We have to deal with her now before it’s too late. I’m the master; you’re the apprentice. Follow me and do as you’re told!’

With that he turned his back and set off at a furious pace. With my heart down in my boots I followed him back to the house to collect the spade and measuring rod. We went directly to the eastern garden and there, less than fifty paces from the dark pit that held Bony Lizzie, I started to dig a new deep pit, eight feet deep and four feet by four square.

It was after sunset before I’d finished it to the Spook’s satisfaction^ I climbed out of the pit feeling uneasy, knowing that Bony Lizzie was in her own pit not far away.

‘That’ll do for now,’ the Spook said. ‘Tomorrow morning go down to the village and fetch the local mason to measure up.’

The mason would cement a border of stones around the pit into which thirteen strong iron bars would eventually be set to prevent any chance of escape. The Spook would have to be on watch while he worked to keep him safe from the pet boggart.

As I trudged back towards the house, my master briefly rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ve done your duty, lad. That’s all that anybody can ask and I’d just like to tell you that so far you’ve more than lived up to what your mam promised…’

I looked up at him in astonishment. My mam had once written him a letter saying that I’d be the best apprentice he’d ever had, but he hadn’t liked her telling him that.

‘Carry on like this,’ the Spook continued, ‘and when the day comes for me to retire, I’ll be sure I’m leaving the County in very good hands. I hope that makes you feel a little better.’

The Spook was always grudging with his praise and to hear him say that was something really special. I suppose he was just trying to cheer me up but I couldn’t get the pit and Alice out of my mind and I’m afraid his praise didn’t help at all.

That night I found it hard to sleep, so I was wide awake when it happened.

At first I thought it was a sudden storm. There was a roar and a whoosh and the whole house seemed to shake and tremble as if buffeted by a great wind. Something struck my window with terrible force and I clearly heard glass crack. Alarmed, I knelt up on the bed and pulled back the curtains.

The large sash window was divided into eight thick, uneven panes so you couldn’t see that much through them at the best of times, but there was a half moon and I could just make out the tops of the trees, bowing and writhing as if their trunks were being shaken by an army of angry giants. And three of my thick windowpanes were cracked. For a moment I was tempted to use the sash cord to raise the bottom half of the window so I could see what was happening. But then I thought better of it. The moon was shining so it was unlikely to be a natural storm. Something was attacking us. Could it be the Bane? Had it found us?

Next came a loud pounding and ripping noise from somewhere directly above my head. It sounded as if something was beating hard on the roof, thumping it with heavy fists. I heard the slates begin to fly off and crash down onto the flags that bordered the western lawn.

I dressed quickly and rushed downstairs two steps at a time. The back door was wide open and I ran out onto the lawn, straight into the teeth of a wind so powerful that it was hardly possible to breathe, never mind take a step forward. But I did force myself on, one slow step at a time, battling to keep my eyes open as the wind pounded my face.

By the light of the moon I could see the Spook standing halfway between the trees and the house, his black cloak flapping in the fierce wind. He had his staff held high before him as if ready to ward off a blow. It seemed to take an age to reach him.

What is it? What is it?’ I shouted, as I finally made it to his side.

My answer came almost immediately, but not from the Spook. A terrible, menacing sound filled the air; a mixture of an angry scream and a throbbing growl that could have been heard for miles. It was the Spook’s boggart. I’d heard that sound before, in the spring, when it had prevented Bony Lizzie from chasing me into the western garden. So I knew that down there in the darkness amongst the trees, it was face to face with something that was threatening the house and gardens.

What else could it be but the Bane?

I stood there shivering with fear and cold, my teeth chattering and my body aching from the battering the gale was giving it. But after a few moments the wind subsided and very gradually everything became very still and quiet.

‘Back to the house,’ said the Spook. ‘There’s nothing to be done here until morning.’

When we reached the back door I stood looking at the fragments of tiles that littered the flags.

‘Was it the Bane?’ I asked.

The Spook nodded. ‘Didn’t take long to find us, did it?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No doubt the girl’s to blame for that. It must have found her first. Either that or she called it.’

‘She wouldn’t do that again,’ I said, trying to defend Alice. ‘Did the boggart save us?’ I asked, changing the subject.

‘Aye, it did for now and at what cost we’ll find out in the morning. But I wouldn’t bet on it succeeding a second time. I’ll stay on watch here,’ said the Spook. ‘Go up to your room and get some sleep. Anything could happen tomorrow so you’ll need all your wits about you.’