The girl – Which girl? I wondered. Did they mean Alice? But then, once again, I felt my heart flutter and I fell into darkness. I knew no more for a while but kept having dreams of flying and falling. For some strange reason I was compelled to jump from a cliff, spreading my arms wide like a bird’s wings. But then I would plunge downwards out of a dark sky, the unseen ground rushing up to meet me.
I felt someone shaking me roughly by the shoulder; then cold water was dashed into my face. I opened my eyes to see Thin Shaun staring down and smell his foul breath. He stepped back to reveal that there were two other people in the room. One was the witch; the other was Alice.
My heart lurched. Alice looked dishevelled and her hands were bound behind her back.
‘Oh, Tom!’ she cried. ‘What have they done to you? You look so ill—’
But the witch interrupted. ‘Worry about yourself, child!’ she cried. ‘Your time on this earth is almost over. Within the hour I will give you to your father, the Fiend.’
AS THIN SHAUN picked me up again, I heard Scarabek cry some word of dark magic. Seconds later we were standing outside the burial mound. It was dark once more, and there was a waxing crescent moon; the air was very cold, a hoar frost already forming over the soft boggy ground.
We headed north, the witch’s fist bunched in Alice’s hair as she dragged her along. The familiar had been left behind in the barrow.
Alice had been beyond the protection of the blood jar, so why, I wondered, hadn’t the Fiend come for her already? We’d both expected that, at the first opportunity, he’d take his revenge.
So was the witch going to summon him now? If so, the blood jar would prevent him from coming near. Did she know about it? Would she break it and give us both to the Fiend?
The landscape was bleak and treeless but covered with scrub and brambles, and it was to a tangled thicket that the witch finally led us. She dragged Alice over to a large thorny bush and tied her by the hair to its intertwined branches. While I watched from Thin Shaun’s shoulder, horrified at what was taking place, Scarabek circled the bramble patch three times against the clock, chanting dark spells. Alice began to weep. Her knowledge of the craft would tell her exactly what the witch was doing.
‘Oh, Tom!’ Alice cried. ‘She’s done a deal with the Fiend. She wants to hurt you too. He’ll be here soon.’
‘He will indeed!’ agreed Scarabek. ‘So it’s time to get you yonder so that the Fiend can come and collect the girl. Let’s away!’ she commanded Thin Shaun.
I’d expected – and hoped – to be tied up alongside Alice. Unknown to the witch, I still had the blood jar in my pocket, so he surely couldn’t hurt me.
But I was led away from Alice, up the slope. We gazed back down from on high. Alice looked very tiny, but I could just make out her desperate struggles to get free of the brambles.
I soon found out how wrong I’d been about Scarabek: she knew everything!
‘We’re far enough away now,’ she said, ‘and the girl’s beyond the protection of that jar she made. So that’s the first pain you’ll endure – watching the Fiend take your pretty friend’s life and soul! He’s delighted to have the opportunity to make you suffer. But don’t worry, I won’t let him get his hands on you! I intend to give you to the Morrigan.’
Lightning suddenly split the sky to the west as dark clouds raced inland, obscuring the stars. It was followed within seconds by a rumble of thunder, and then, in the ensuing silence, I heard a new sound – that of distant but very heavy footfalls, each followed by an explosive hiss.
Although still mostly invisible, the Fiend was just starting to materialize. He would take on the huge form of what witches called ‘his fearsome majesty’, a shape designed to instil fear and awe in all who beheld him. Some said that the sight could make you die of fear on the spot. No doubt this was true for those of a nervous disposition, but I had been close to him in that form before, and so had Alice, and we’d both survived the encounter.
We were too far away to see his approaching footprints. They were fiery hot, and whereas his cloven hooves could burn their impression into wooden floorboards, in cold boggy terrain like this they would merely cause the ground to spit and hiss, erupting in spurts of steam at each contact.
Although the clouds were almost halfway across the sky now, the moon was still ahead of that dark advancing curtain, and by its light I saw the Fiend materialize fully. Even at this distance he looked huge: thick and muscular, his torso shaped like a barrel, his whole body covered in hair as thick as the hide of an ox. Huge horns curved from his head and his tail snaked upwards in an arc behind him.
My heart was in my mouth as he strode directly towards Alice, who was struggling in vain to tear herself free of the brambles. I could hear her screams of terror. I tried to struggle out of Thin Shaun’s grip, but he was very strong and, in my weakened condition, my efforts were feeble.
Towering above Alice, the Fiend reached down with his huge left hand and knotted his fist in her hair, as the witch had done, tearing her free of the brambles and lifting her up so that her face was level with his own. She screamed again as her hair was ripped from the thicket, and began to weep. The Fiend loomed closer, as if intending to bite off her head.
‘Tom! Tom!’ she cried. ‘Goodbye, Tom. Goodbye!’
At those words my heart surged up into my mouth and I could hardly breathe. Was this it? Was it really over at last? The Fiend had her in his clutches, and there was nothing more I could do to save her. But how would I live without Alice? Tears began to run down my face and I began to sob uncontrollably. It was the pain of imminent loss, yes, but also the pangs that came from my empathy with Alice.
We were so close I knew exactly what she was experiencing. I suffered what she suffered. Never again to be comfortable in this world; anticipating an eternity of pain and terror as her soul languished in the dark, at the mercy of the Fiend, who would devise endless tortures to repay her for the trouble and hurt she had caused him because of me. All because of me. It was just too much to bear.
A moment later it was over. There was a flash of light, a rumble of thunder, and a blast of hot wind searing into our faces. I screwed up my eyes, and when I was able to open them again, the Fiend had vanished, taking Alice with him.
Another pang of loss knotted my stomach. Alice was now beyond this world; never had I felt so alone. As Thin Shaun carried me, Scarabek walked close beside me, spitting cruel taunts.