'Where's the Bolton Road?' I demanded.
'Go down the hill to the crossroads and turn left. That's Bolton Road. Then keep going. It's the last house on the row!'
With that, the window was slammed shut, but it didn't matter: I had the information I needed. So I sprinted down the hill, turned left, ran on, breathing hard, and was soon knocking on the door of the last house in the row.
Doctors are used to being woken up in the middle of the night for emergencies, so it didn't take him long to answer the door. He was a small man with a thin black moustache and hair that was turning grey at his temples. He was holding a candle and nodded as I spoke, seeming very calm and business-like. I told him that the injured man was at Moor View Farm, but when I explained who needed help and why, his manner changed and the candle began to shake in his hand.
'You get back and I'll follow you as soon as I can,' he said, closing the door in my face.
I went back up towards the moor but I was worried. The doctor was clearly scared at having to treat a spook. Would he do as he'd promised? Would he really follow me to the farm? If he didn't, the Spook could die. For all I knew he might be dead already, and with a heavy heart I trudged up the hill as fast as I could. By then the worst of the storm had moved away and all that could be heard were distant rumbles of thunder over the moor and the occasional flash of sheet lightning.
* * *
I needn't have worried about the doctor. He was true to his word and reached the farm only fifteen or so minutes after me.
But he didn't stay long. When he examined the Spook, his hands shook so badly I didn't need the wide-eyed expression on his face to tell me that he was terrified. Nobody likes to be near a spook. I'd also told him what had happened in the yard and kitchen, which made it even worse. He kept looking round as though he expected to see the boggart creeping up on him. I would have found it funny if I hadn't felt so sad and worried.
He did help me to carry the Spook up the stairs and get him to bed. Then he put his ear against the Spook's chest and listened carefully. When he stood up, he was shaking his head.
'Pneumonia is creeping into his lungs,' he said at last. 'There's nothing I can do.'
'He's strong!' I protested. 'He'll get better.'
He turned to me with an expression on his face that
I'd seen doctors use before. It was a professional face, a mixture of compassion and calm, a mask adopted when they have to break bad news to relatives of the seriously ill.
'I'm afraid the prognosis is very bad, boy' he said, patting me gently on the shoulder. 'Your master is dying - it's unlikely that he'll survive the night. But death comes to us all in the end so I'm afraid we have to accept it. Are you here alone?'
I nodded.
'Will you be all right?' I nodded again.
'Well, I'll send someone up here in the morning' he said, picking up his bag and preparing to go. 'He'll want washing' he added ominously.
I knew what he meant by that. It was a County tradition to wash the dead before burial. It had always seemed a daft idea to me. What was the point of washing someone when they were just going to end up in a coffin in the ground? I was angry and almost told him as much, but I managed to control myself and went and sat beside the bed, listening to the Spook gasping for breath.
He couldn't be dying! I refused to believe it. How could he die after all he'd been through? I just wasn't prepared to accept it. The doctor was wrong, surely? But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that the doctor was mistaken, I began to despair. You see, I remembered what Mam had said about intimations of death. I remembered the smell in Dad's room, that stench of flowers, and how Mam had said it was a sign of the approach of death. I had her gift and I could smell it now because it was coming from the Spook and it was getting stronger and stronger by the minute.
But when daylight came, my master was still alive and the woman sent by the doctor to wash his body couldn't keep the disappointment from her face.
'I can't stay longer than noon. I've another one to do this afternoon!' she snapped, but then she told me to get a clean bed sheet and rip it into seven pieces, and to bring her a bowl of cold water.
After I'd done what she asked, she took a strip of the sheet, folded it until it was no bigger than the palm of her hand and dipped it into the water. Then she used it to bathe the Spook's forehead and chin. It was hard to tell whether she'd done that to make him feel better or to save herself a bit of time washing the body later.
That done, she sat down beside the bed and started knitting what looked like baby clothes. She talked a lot too, telling me the story of her life and boasting about her two jobs. As well as washing the dead and preparing them for burial, she was also the local midwife. She had a bad cold and kept coughing all over the Spook and blowing her red nose into a large, mottled handkerchief.
Just before noon she started to pack her things ready to go. 'I'll be back in the morning to lay him out,' she said. 'He won't survive a second night.'
Ts there no hope at all?' I asked her, aware that the Spook hadn't opened his eyes since banging his head.
'Listen to him breathing,' she told me.
I listened carefully. His breathing sounded harsh, with a faint rattle to it. It was as if his windpipe were constricted.
'That's a death-rattle' she said. 'His time in this world is coming to an end.'
At that moment there was a knock on the front door and I went down to see who it was. When I opened the door, Alice was standing close to the step, her woollen coat buttoned up to the neck and her hood pulled forward.