The following morning I woke up early, no nearer to finding an answer to the mystery. It was too soon to go down to breakfast. The boggart became very angry if you went into the kitchen before it was ready for you, and it was not wise to annoy such a dangerous creature.
So I went outside and strode toward the western garden. It was a good place to think. The weather had turned, and I was surprised to find a thin coating of hoarfrost on the grass. The air was unusually cold for late August, much colder than I’d expected. Even in the County, which was known for its long winters, we didn’t usually get the first frosts until late September or early October. It could well be that winter would come early this year, more severe than ever.
I sat down on the bench and gazed toward the fells, listening to the birdsong and the hum of insects. This was where my master used to teach me. I would sit taking notes while he paced back and forth.
His grave lay near the bench, the mound of earth now covered with grass. I read the words on the gravestone. I’d chosen them myself.
HERE LIETH
JOHN GREGORY OF CHIPENDEN,
THE GREATEST OF THE COUNTY SPOOKS
The Spook had served the County well. He’d been a good master, and as I thought about him, tears came to my eyes.
I reflected on the years of training he had given me, and all his warnings against the dark; his instructions on how to deal with it. We’d faced many foes, but malevolent witches had been some of our most dangerous enemies. We had fought them, and captured them, and bound them in pits within his garden.
But a change had come. We weren’t strong enough by ourselves, so we had been forced to compromise in order to have any hope of finally defeating the Fiend. So, even though it had made my master uncomfortable, we had formed an alliance with Grimalkin, the witch assassin of the Malkin clan.
I remembered how Grimalkin had helped us, on so many occasions. She had forged a sword especially for me, and I had carried it during our final struggles to destroy the Fiend—a sword that, while I wore or held it, would protect me from dark magic. Grimalkin had named it the Starblade because she had crafted it from the ore of a meteorite.
I had carried the sword into battle gratefully, but afterward, sickened by all the killing and the death of John Gregory, I had told her that I would never use it again—that I would become the Spook my master had trained me to be and use only the weapons of my trade.
Suddenly I was roused from my thoughts by the ringing of the bell down at the withy trees. I went back to the house, pulled on my cloak, grabbed my staff from where I’d left it leaning against the wall by the back door, and set off at a brisk pace to answer the summons.
As I moved out of the morning sunlight and into the gloom of the willow trees that shrouded the crossroads, the bell stopped ringing. That sometimes happened. People lost patience and returned home. Or sometimes they were nervous about meeting a spook, persuading themselves that there would be no response and escaping while they could.
At first I thought that this was what had happened here. The rope was still dancing and the bell swinging. Perhaps the sound of my approach through the trees had sent my visitor home. Well, no doubt whoever it was needed help, so I decided to set off in pursuit.
I walked up to the bell and examined the flattened grass, searching around to discover which way the tracks led.
“You took your time!” The voice came from behind me. “I was starting to think that you’d left on a job.”
I spun round angrily, recognizing the voice. The girl from yesterday was smiling at me, arms folded, legs slightly apart, head held high.
“I thought I made myself clear,” I said. “You are wasting my time—and your own. I neither want nor need an apprentice.”
“A man never knows what he wants until he’s got it!” she replied, her smile widening into a grin. “Then he wonders how he ever managed without it.”
Her grin was infectious, but I didn’t allow it to work on me. “Look . . .” I attempted a different approach. “It’s a very dangerous job. People die learning the spook’s trade. I was my master’s last apprentice, and there’d been twenty-nine before me. A third of them died violent deaths during their training. The one before me, Billy Bradley, got his hand trapped beneath a big stone that he was using to bind a ripper boggart. It bit off the fingers of his left hand at the second knuckle, and he died of shock and loss of blood.”
“Bad things happen,” she said, no longer smiling. “I had a cousin who was a laborer. He got crushed between a farm wagon and a gatepost. It took him almost a week to die. He kept the whole village awake with his screams.”
“I’m sorry that your cousin died, but that was an accident. My job is a constant war against the creatures of the dark; they kill us if they get half a chance. John Gregory’s own master, Henry Horrocks, was once tracking a boggart known as a bone breaker. As they crossed a field, it struck without warning, tearing off his apprentice’s hand at the wrist. It was being controlled by a witch, and she wanted it to bring her his thumb bones. The poor lad died. There was nothing Horrocks could do to save him. If you became my apprentice, there’s no guarantee that you’d even survive the first six months.”
“Now you’re talking,” the girl said brightly, the smile returning to her face once more. “You’re considering the possibility, aren’t you?”
I shook my head, regretting my words. My patience was rapidly running out, but I tried to remember my dad’s advice about being polite. I spoke to her calmly and firmly. “You’re a girl, and so not suitable for the job, as I told you yesterday. You’re too old as well. My master took me on for training when I was only twelve. How old are you?”
“As old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth,” she replied.
I turned my back in exasperation, ready to return to the house.
“John Gregory trained for the priesthood first,” she said to my back. “He was almost twenty when Henry Horrocks took him on, but he turned out to be an excellent spook. I’m easily young enough to learn the trade.”
“How do you know that? Who told you that about John Gregory?” I demanded, stopping and turning around.
She smiled mysteriously, answering my earlier question instead. “I’m fifteen,” she said brightly. “I’m just two years younger than you. We have the same birthday—the third of August.”