The Spook handed me his big leather bag and without a backwards glance headed back up the hill. I followed him over its crest, then down through the trees towards the road, which was a distant grey scar meandering its way south through the green and brown patchwork of fields.
‘Done much travelling, lad?’ the Spook called back over his shoulder. ‘Seen much of the County?’
I told him I’d never been more than six miles from my dad’s farm. Going to the local market was the most travelling I’d ever done.
The Spook muttered something under his breath and shook his head; I could tell that he wasn’t best pleased by my answer.
‘Well, your travels start today,’ he said. ‘We’re heading south towards a village called Horshaw. It’s just over fifteen miles as the crow flies and we have to be there before dark.’
I’d heard of Horshaw. It was a pit village and had the largest coal yards in the County, holding the output of dozens of surrounding mines. I’d never expected to go there and I wondered what the Spook’s business could be in a place like that.
He walked at a furious pace, taking big, effortless strides. Soon I was struggling to keep up; as well as carrying my own small bundle of clothes and other belongings, I now had his bag, which seemed to be getting heavier by the minute. Then, just to make things worse, it started to rain. About an hour before noon the Spook came to a sudden halt. He turned round and stared hard at me. By then I was about ten paces behind. My feet were hurting and I’d already developed a slight limp. The road was little more than a track that was quickly turning to mud. Just as I caught him up, I stubbed my toe, slipped and almost lost my balance.
He tutted. ‘Feeling dizzy, lad?’ he asked.
I shook my head. I wanted to give my arm a rest but it didn’t seem right to put his bag down in the mud.
‘That’s good,’ said the Spook with a faint smile, the rain dripping from the edge of his hood down onto his beard. ‘Never trust a man who’s dizzy. That’s something well worth remembering.’
‘I’m not dizzy,’ I protested.
‘No?’ asked the Spook, raising his bushy eyebrows. ‘Then it must be your boots. They won’t be much use in this job.’
My boots were the same as my dad’s and Jack’s, sturdy enough and suitable for the mud and muck of the farmyard, but the kind that needed a lot of getting used to. A new pair usually cost you a fortnight’s blisters before your feet got bedded in.
I looked down at the Spook’s. They were made of strong, good-quality leather and they had extra-thick soles. They must have cost a fortune, but I suppose that for someone who did a lot of walking, they were worth every penny. They flexed as he walked and I just knew that they’d been comfortable from the very first moment he pulled them on.
‘Good boots are important in this job,’ said the Spook. ‘We depend on neither man nor beast to get us where we need to go. If you rely on your own two good legs, then they won’t let you down. So if I finally decide to take you on, I’ll get you a pair of boots just like mine. Until then, you’ll just have to manage as best you can.’
At noon we halted for a short break, sheltering from the rain in an abandoned cattle shed. The Spook took a piece of cloth out of his pocket and unwrapped it, revealing a large lump of yellow cheese. He broke a bit off and handed it to me. I’d seen worse and I was hungry so I wolfed it down. The Spook only ate a small piece himself before wrapping the rest up again and stuffing it back into his pocket.
Once out of the rain, he’d pulled his hood back so I now had the chance to look at him properly for the first time. Apart from the full beard and the hangman’s eyes, his most noticeable feature was his nose, which was grim and sharp, with a curve to it that suggested a bird’s beak. The mouth, when closed, was almost hidden by that moustache and beard. The beard itself had looked grey at first glance, but when I looked closer, trying to be as casual as possible so that he wouldn’t notice, I saw that most of the colours of the rainbow seemed to be sprouting there. There were shades of red, black, brown and, obviously, lots of grey, but as I came to realize later, it all depended on the light.
‘Weak jaw, weak character,’ my dad always used to say, and he also believed that some men wore beards just to hide that fact. Looking at the Spook though, you could see despite the beard that his jaw was long, and when he opened his mouth he revealed yellow teeth that were very sharp and more suited to gnawing on red meat than nibbling at cheese.
With a shiver, I suddenly realized that he reminded me of a wolf. And it wasn’t just the way he looked. He was a kind of predator because he hunted the dark; living merely on nibbles of cheese would make him always hungry and mean. If I completed my apprenticeship, I’d end up just like him.
‘You still hungry, lad?’ he asked, his green eyes boring hard into my own until I started to feel a bit dizzy.
I was soaked to the skin and my feet were hurting, but most of all I was hungry. So I nodded, thinking he might offer me some more, but he just shook his head and muttered something to himself. Then, once again, he looked at me sharply.
‘Hunger’s something you’re going to have to get used to,’ he said. ‘We don’t eat much when we’re working, and if the job’s very difficult, we don’t eat anything at all until afterwards. Fasting’s the safest thing because it makes us less vulnerable to the dark. It makes us stronger. So you might as well start practising now, because when we get to Horshaw, I’m going to give you a little test. You’re going to spend a night in a haunted house. And you’re going to do it alone. That’ll show me what you’re really made of!’
Chapter Three
Number 13 Watery Lane
We reached Horshaw as a church bell began to chime in the distance. It was seven o’clock and starting to get dark. A heavy drizzle blew straight into our faces, but there was still enough light for me to judge that this wasn’t a place I ever wanted to live in and that even a short visit would be best avoided. Horshaw was a black smear against the green fields, a grim, ugly little place with about two dozen rows of mean back-to-back houses huddling together mainly on the southern slope of a damp, bleak hillside. The whole area was riddled with mines, and Horshaw was at its centre. High above the village was a large slag heap which marked the entrance to a mine. Behind the slag heap were the coal yards, which stored enough fuel to keep the biggest towns in the County warm through even the longest of winters.