After a while she smiled and wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘Thanks for saving me back there in the dungeons, Alice,’ I said softly. ‘The buggane was draining me. I could feel my life slipping away. I was so cold and weak.’
Alice squeezed my hand. ‘In the shaman’s study, as soon as I worked out how to control the cache, Lizzie’s power started to wane. I used a spell to cloak myself. Walked right past her and she didn’t see me. I went into the tunnels and started to work on the buggane. It was in its spirit form, whispering to you, when I finally reached it with my mind. I was just in time, Tom. It was planning to drain you in one go – as Lizzie had ordered. So I called out to you; told you to fight it – and, just in time, you started to resist. Then I went looking for Lizzie again and managed to stop her taking your bones. By then I knew we’d won. I was stronger than her …’
‘Have you still got that power, Alice?’ I asked. ‘Is all that dark magic still at your service?’
‘Still got a bit left, but it’s fading fast. Power’s still there down in that cavern, but I can’t reach it no more.’
‘What do you think the Spook will decide to do?’ I asked.
‘Old Gregory will send for Grimalkin, mark my words. He wouldn’t have dreamed of such a thing once, but now he hasn’t any choice. He’s not the man he was. Too much has happened: his library’s burned to the ground, the County ransacked, and now this – being defeated by a powerful witch not just once but three times over. But for Adriana, I think Lizzie would have killed us all – Old Gregory included.
‘From now on you’ll get stronger and he’ll get weaker. It happens to us all eventually. He’s had a long life fighting the dark, but now it’s coming to an end. You’ll be the new spook and you’d best get ready to replace him.’
I nodded. There was some truth in what Alice had said, but I wasn’t ready to take over from my master just yet. I put my arms around her and hugged her again. Once more we’d survived, and two more enemies of the light were no more.
As we walked back towards the cottage, we saw the Spook waiting for us in the doorway. What had he decided to do? His face was grim, and I thought it looked like bad news.
But I was wrong.
‘Find yourself a mirror, girl, and summon Grimalkin,’ my master said. ‘We have no choice now but to attempt to bind the Fiend.’
Once again, I’ve written most of this from memory, just using my notebook when necessary. We are still on the island of Mona in the cold, dark, stormy heart of winter, staying at the abandoned cottage Adriana showed us. Over the last two months we’ve been busy with spook’s business.
My master has almost finished rewriting a book about the Pendle witches, and Alice has volunteered to add to the beginnings of his new library. She’s started on an account of the two years she spent being trained in witchcraft by Bony Lizzie; it will add to our knowledge of the dark.
The tunnels beneath the chapel have collapsed, closing off all access to the Grim Cache. So my master, Alice and I have hunted down and slain every other known buggane on the island – five in all – to prevent one burrowing down to find it again. Now Mona is a safer place for those who work for the light.
Grimalkin agreed to join us in an attempt to bind the Fiend once and for all, but she has not yet arrived and Alice is no longer able to contact her by using a mirror. She now fears that something has happened to the witch assassin. Without her we can do nothing, and the blood jar is our only defence against the Fiend.
There is no good news from the County. It seems that it is in the iron grip of the enemy. And here on Mona, the Ruling Council are assembled again and started returning refugees across the water; there is no news of how they were received – or of Captain Baines. The yeomen are still searching for those who have avoided their net, and the island is less safe for us with each passing day.
The Spook was right. The people have reverted to their old ways.
At least with Lizzie’s death, Bill Arkwright will have finally found his way to the light.
I long to go back to the County, but the Spook’s plan now is to escape westwards, to Ireland. We go within the week. But whenever I think of that land I remember my nightmare and the threat made by the Celtic witch; I remember the Morrigan.
In just over two years I’ll finish learning my trade. My master tells me that he might take it easier then and let me do most of the work. As a young spook, he worked alongside his own master, Henry Horrocks, until he died, and it was to the advantage of both.
It’s his decision. He’s the Spook and I’m still just his apprentice. Soon we sail to take refuge even further from the County’s shores. No doubt we’ll be heading into even greater danger.
Thomas J. Ward