THE FOLLOWING DAY, Lizzie became impatient once more. She wouldn’t touch the egg, but as the sun went down, decided to tackle the spirit of Jacob Stone again, forcing him to tell her what she needed to know about it.
As usual, the hard work of drawing the water, filling the big cauldron and lighting the fire was left to me.
This time the bones were free of the spook’s flesh. White and gleaming, they were, in the palm of Lizzie’s grubby left hand. When she tipped them into the cauldron, they sank briefly, but then bobbed up to the surface, just like the day before. Once again, the cauldron glowed and the cloud of steam rose above it – but this time there was one big difference.
The face of Jacob Stone was nowhere to be seen.
Lizzie muttered her spells with increasing desperation, but to no avail. ‘He’s broken free!’ she hissed. ‘Gone to the light, he has. Who would have thought the old man was that strong?’
I couldn’t believe it, either. Old Jacob Stone was really something. I wondered how he’d managed to do it. It made me realize that there was a lot Lizzie didn’t know – she certainly wasn’t all-powerful: even a dead spook could give her trouble.
But her failure to make the spook’s spirit tell her the secrets of the egg put Lizzie in a really foul mood.
That night I didn’t sleep well.
I got up early and went to carry out the first of my early morning chores. I began by collecting eggs, carefully searching the hedgerow on the eastern edge of the garden, where the youngest hens usually laid. I sniffed each egg twice to make sure, only placing Lizzie’s favourites in my basket. She liked the ones that contained blood-spots best – couldn’t get enough of ’em. Once I had half a dozen, I went back to the house. Lizzie was usually a late riser, but to my surprise she was up already, waiting in the kitchen like a cat ready for the cream.
She snatched the basket from me, put it on the table and selected one of the speckled eggs. After poking her fingernail into the end, she tipped back her head and poured the contents of the raw egg into her mouth. When she licked her lips, I could see big clots of blood on her tongue.
‘A tasty egg, that!’ Lizzie said. ‘It was nearly as good as a ready-to-hatch baby bird! Why don’t you try one, girl?’
I shook my head, wrinkling my nose in disgust.
‘You’re a fool, you are, to turn down good food. Could be all you get until tonight. No time for a cooked breakfast. We’re off right away.’
‘Off where?’ I asked.
‘You’ll find out soon enough, but we’ll be away for days up north, where our slimy sisters live . . . Let’s hope they don’t take a dislike to you!’
I didn’t bother to ask what she meant by ‘slimy sisters’ – no doubt I’d find out soon enough.
I was never happy being trained by Lizzie; sometimes it really got to me. I’d not ruled out the idea of trying to escape, but I didn’t feel confident of getting clear away. She was sure to come after me and drag me back. Still, if things were really bad and the chance presented itself, I knew I’d take it.
Lizzie soon finished off the other eggs, and then, after pushing me outside and locking the door, set off at a brisk pace, heading south-west. I followed at her heels as the sun climbed in the eastern sky. To the north-west lay the brooding mass of Pendle. Long before noon we had skirted its southern slopes and had reached the bank of the river Ribble.
Lizzie eyed the fording place doubtfully. ‘You’ll have to carry me across, girl,’ she snapped, leaping up onto my back and wrapping her arms around my neck.
Witches couldn’t cross running water. That was why you saw witch dams across most of the streams in the Pendle District. These devices temporarily halted the flow of water so that a witch could avoid a long detour. There was no possibility of doing the same to a river as wide as the Ribble; it would take all my strength and Lizzie’s willpower to get her to the far bank.
I set off just as fast as I dared. I had to get her across before my energy failed. The stones sloping down from the bank were slippery, and when I reached the water it got worse. The river was quite high, and was rushing past my ankles with some force. Lizzie started shrieking with pain, and her arms tightened around my neck so that I could hardly breathe.
I staggered and almost fell – the water was up to my knees now. Just when I felt unable to take another step, the ground beneath my feet sloped upwards and the water level fell to my ankles again. We were almost there! We collapsed in a heap on the bank; I was trembling with exhaustion, and Lizzie was shaking with the pain and trauma of the crossing. She started cursing me fit to burst, but I knew that for once she didn’t mean it. She’d been really scared. Few things terrify a witch like running water. Lizzie had been brave to risk being carried across that wide river.
We rested for an hour and then continued west. By early evening we were climbing a big hill that Lizzie told me was Parlick Pike. At one point she halted and gazed out across the valley with narrowed eyes, as if searching for something. In the distance I could see Pendle. Nearby was another hill of a similar shape, which she said was called the Long Ridge. Nothing moved in the valley but sheep and cattle. Then Lizzie pointed to a large wood to the west. Beside it was a cluster of houses; smoke from the chimneys drifted eastwards with the breeze.
‘That’s Chipenden,’ she told me. ‘And on the edge of that wood lives a very dangerous spook. In his garden he has a relative of mine, Mother Malkin, still alive but trapped in a pit. She is one of the most powerful and dangerous witches Pendle has ever known. One day we’ll come back here to rescue her and put an end to him, but it’ll be much more difficult than it was dealing with Jacob Stone. It’s that John Gregory I told you about – he’s the most powerful spook who’s ever walked the lanes of the County.’
It sounded risky to me. I just hoped that Lizzie would forget all about it. Going up against a dangerous spook like that was madness.
We didn’t tarry near Chipenden but pressed on north through the night, crossing more soggy fell-tops before descending to skirt what Lizzie told me was the city of Caster. It was a place where they didn’t take to kindly to witches, choosing to hang rather than burn them.
At least the body of a hanged witch could be collected by her family and taken to join the other dead witches in the dell east of Pendle, I thought. Burning sent you straight to the dark, with no hope of return. But either way, Lizzie wasn’t keen to join her sisters in Witch Dell, and was very nervous of the city with its big ancient castle.