‘Mam! Mam! Help me, please! A horrible thing is here. It’s got me. Help me! Help me, Mam!’
One part of me felt sorry for the child and wanted to help her. I couldn’t help putting myself in her place and experiencing the terror of being snatched by a witch in the middle of the night. But there was nothing I could do.
I heard another door open, and then heavy footsteps. The mother was awake and rushing towards her daughter. But what chance did she have against a witch such as Bony Lizzie?
There was another terrible scream – this time from the woman – followed by a heavy thump.
‘You’ve killed Mam!’ the child cried out. ‘Oh, Mam! Mam! My poor mam!’
Lizzie had murdered the mother! And in front of her own daughter too! I felt sick to my stomach.
‘YOU’LL BE NEXT if you don’t shut your stinking gob!’ Lizzie cried, and I heard her clumping down the stairs towards me.
She pushed past, carrying the child, who was sobbing pitifully. She was a skinny little thing, no older than six. I suddenly felt angry. I raced after Lizzie, grabbed her arm and brought her to a halt. She spun round to face me, eyes wild with anger.
‘Why did you have to murder her mother?’ I demanded. ‘Ain’t the rest of it bad enough without that?’
Lizzie glared at me. Had her hands been free, she’d have slapped me hard for sure. I was shaking with fear at what I’d just done – grabbing her arm and shouting at her like that. True, we’d had words before, but I’d never been so openly defiant.
‘Know your place, girl, or you’ll be sorry!’ she warned, her mouth twitching dangerously, showing how close she was to hurting me. ‘I just used a sleepnow spell on her. Her mam shouldn’t be dead – not unless she broke her silly neck when she fell. And that would serve her right for being so fat!’
With that, she strode off westwards, into the dark, carrying the sobbing child.
I really wanted to help that little girl. But what could I do against Lizzie’s magic? If she stopped to sleep or rest, I might get a chance to try something, but it would be risky: I’d pay a terrible price if I was caught. I was probably wasting my time even thinking about it, because I knew she wouldn’t stop until we reached the water witches’ lair.
By morning there’d be a hue and cry – that was if the mother did recover from the effects of Lizzie’s spell. If she had broken her neck, it might be hours or even days before neighbours found her body and realized that the girl was missing. But no doubt the witches were grabbing other children right now, and the hunt for the abductors would begin. Every able-bodied person for miles would be up in arms. Despite the distance from the mill, they’d finally alert the spook, Arkwright. His dogs and eyes might be baffled by the cloaking magic, but this whole area would be searched. I knew Lizzie wanted to reach that refuge as quickly as possible.
We got back well before dawn and found that the cloaking of the farm was still of the highest standard. Lizzie sniffed and cursed, studying the stars and the horizon in frustration for nearly an hour. I hoped she might hand the girl to me – I could pretend to stumble and allow her to make a run for it. But Lizzie kept a fierce grip on her prize every second of the way. Finally she backtracked and led us to a place where the air shimmered to reveal the house.
Betsy was waiting at the open door, and she grinned and beckoned us inside. As we followed her down the cellar steps, I heard the cries. The child Lizzie carried was still sobbing, but this was a loud wail from more than one child: a cacophony of misery.
The sight that greeted me in that gloomy cellar made me sick to my stomach. There were more than a dozen new cages now – larger ones, intended to hold children rather than skelts. Four of these had occupants; one was asleep, three crying their lungs out with fear. All were covered in slime, and one, a little boy with two front teeth missing, was dripping wet.
There were more confined skelts than last time too; six of them now, all staring out at the children and twitching with hunger.
‘Give her to me!’ Betsy Gammon demanded, and Lizzie handed the little girl over without question. The huge woman lifted her up and held her at arm’s length. ‘A skinny little thing, but better than nowt! We’ll need to feed her up!’ she declared before thrusting her into a cage and clicking a lock into place.
‘We’re still two short of the seven we require,’ Lizzie said, ‘but I’ve kept my end of the bargain.’
‘That you have,’ Betsy agreed. ‘But don’t worry – tomorrow night a bunch of my girls will be on their way to a place where there should be rich pickings. It’s an orphanage run by a few scrawny old nuns. So soon we should have brats to spare!’
The next couple of days became a nightmare. Lizzie and Betsy were getting on like a house on fire now, cackling together in an upstairs room and sipping dandelion wine. While they did that, I was given all the chores to do, the worst being to look after the children they’d stolen.
I didn’t want to face them; didn’t want to be confronted by their misery . . . But someone had to do it – they needed to be fed and kept alive until the ritual at the full moon. Lizzie would have been happy for me to push stale bread through the bars of their cage, and tip a cupful of water into each little mouth.
However, I couldn’t leave them sitting there in their own stink, so I dealt with them one at a time, opening each cage to let them out to be fed and cleaned up.
One night Lizzie caught me asking one little girl her name. I was just trying to be friendly and make the child feel a little better, but Lizzie scoffed at me.
‘You’re a fool, girl!’ she hissed into my ear, giving the child a false smile. ‘Why waste your time learning her name when she’ll be dead soon? You’d be better off studying your spells.’
But once Lizzie had gone I carried on as before. I also gave each child ten minutes to walk about and stretch their legs a bit. Most sniffled and sobbed and stared at the caged skelts open-mouthed, clearly terrified of the creatures.
Just a few hours before midnight, on the day they were due to be sacrificed, I was cleaning up the little girl that Lizzie had snatched. She didn’t stop talking, and her words were painful to hear: ‘Mam’s dead! She killed her. Struck her down dead!’ she wailed.
‘She ain’t dead.’ I tried to make my voice as soft and reassuring as possible. ‘It was just a spell to make her sleep. By now she’ll have woken up. So don’t you worry. Your mam’s all right.’