Could I trust her? I wondered.
I shrugged. I was about to find out. We’d go and do the test now. If Jenny truly was a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, she would pass the haunted-house test. While some who entered that house might just feel uneasy, thinking they were being watched or hearing a few raps, a seventh son of a seventh son would be receptive to the full ghast experience there. If she really did have similar powers, it would be the same for her.
“We’ll head for Horshaw,” I told her. “I’m going to give you the same test that my master gave me and all his other apprentices.”
“I can’t say I’m looking forward to it,” Jenny said, “but I’ll do my best. Whatever I face can’t be as bad as being in the tree hanging by my feet with that beast drinking my blood and biting me.”
She was certainly correct there, but in the tree she had been tied up and in no position to run. First of all, I needed to know if she could hear the ghasts. And second, if she would simply run. It was no good taking on an apprentice who fled at the first sign of danger.
10
The Haunted House
I handed Jenny my bag. “You’ll be carrying this from now on,” I told her. “It’s one of the jobs apprentices have to do.”
I was quite capable of carrying my own bag, but I was following in my master’s footsteps, upholding the traditions that he’d learned from his own master, Henry Horrocks.
She smiled, but then pulled a face when she felt its weight. “What’s inside this—the kitchen sink?” she asked. “When do I get my own bag and a staff?”
“Pass the test, and I’ll give you a temporary staff until we get a chance to have one made for you. . . . By the way,” I said mischievously, “a spook reserves the right to give his apprentice a new name. So which one would you prefer? I have three: Pixie, Buttercup, or Nettle?”
She didn’t reply. Obviously she didn’t appreciate my sense of humor.
So I made my expression stern. “Now come on—follow me and don’t dawdle. We’ve quite a few miles to cover before sunset.”
Jenny gave me a hard stare, and a look of annoyance flickered across her face. She was proud, and no doubt didn’t like being spoken to like that. But she didn’t say anything. I realized I’d told her not to dawdle—and that made me smile to myself. It was one of the expressions that John Gregory had always used.
Of course Jenny didn’t see my smile. I’d set off at a furious pace, leaving her stumbling along several steps behind. That was another thing my master always used to do. Maybe he did it to set an example when he was in a hurry, but it certainly made it hard to keep up when carrying a heavy bag. I knew that only too well.
I had done these things almost without thinking, following my master’s lead. But I knew that I would have to find my own way of working. I suspected that it was always hardest with the first apprentice. After that, it would become progressively easier.
Or at least I hoped so!
We reached the pit village of Horshaw just as it was getting dark. I had adjusted my pace from time to time to ensure that we arrived at dusk. I’m sure that’s what John Gregory used to do with each of the apprentices he tested.
I could see a slag heap on the hill overlooking the town—that, and a big wooden wheel hooped with metal. The latter was used to control the descent of a wooden platform down a vertical shaft. This took miners down to the coal face to begin their work. When my master had brought me here, we’d passed a line of miners heading up the hill for the night shift. They’d stopped their singing on seeing a spook and his apprentice and had even crossed to the other side to avoid us.
Tonight, though, the narrow, cobbled streets were deserted, and soon we reached the bottom of the hill, turning in to a deserted lane with broken and boarded windows. It was a place I remembered well, but the last time I’d seen it, a sign hanging by a single rusty rivet proclaimed it to be Watery Lane. Now the sign was gone.
The terraced house on the corner, the nearest to an abandoned corn merchant’s warehouse, was our destination. Its number, 13, was nailed to the door.
“This is the place,” I told Jenny as I inserted the key into the lock.
Once inside, I lit a candle and handed it to the girl. Nothing within the small living room had changed. It was empty—there was only a pile of dirty straw on the flagged floor near the window. The curtains were yellow and tattered, the whole room full of cobwebs.
Jenny put my bag down on the floor and stared about her with wide eyes.
Suddenly a chill ran down my spine—the warning that a seventh son of a seventh son receives when something from the dark is close. Soon the ghasts would be active. Would Jenny be able to see and hear them? Would she be brave enough to face those terrible entities?
I pointed to the inner door, which was partly open. “That’s the kitchen, and to the right there are stone steps leading down to the cellar.”
I remembered descending those steps, struggling to be brave, readying myself for what might be waiting in the darkness of the cellar below.
“You can tell the time by the bell you’ll hear chiming from the church tower,” I continued. “What you have to do is simple. Go down to the cellar at midnight and face what’s lurking there. Do that, Jenny, and I’ll take you on as my apprentice for at least a month. This is a test of your courage when faced with the dark. Understand?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look happy. She was shivering, all her earlier cockiness gone. It was chilly in the room, but was she trembling with cold or with fear? I couldn’t tell, but I remembered all too well the terror I’d felt at being left alone in that house. It was only natural.
Then I recalled what else the Spook had told me. I gave Jenny the same advice now.
“Don’t open the front door to anyone,” I continued. “You may hear a loud knocking, but resist the temptation to answer it. That’s one thing you mustn’t do.”
I knew what lay out there—the ghast that walked the street was even more dangerous than the two in the house. The Spook had told me about it the day after our visit here. There had been an old woman, a “rouser” paid by mine workers to wake them for their shift by rapping on their doors. But she used to creep into the houses and steal things. One day one of the householders caught her at it. She stabbed him to death and was hanged for the crime. Now, after dark, the ghast haunted the street, still trying to trick its way into the houses.