When I encountered the Fiend, he had been perhaps three times the size of a man. But those flattened trees and the size of this throne gave an indication of how truly dreadful he could be. The being who sat here in his fearsome majesty had been big enough to fit a human in his mouth; he’d been much taller than the tallest County tree.
I continued walking forward cautiously, Thorne just behind me. I kept telling myself to be brave. After all, there was no way the Fiend could be here now. His head was still in the sack carried by Grimalkin. He was trapped in that dead flesh.
When I reached the first of the curtains, I came to a halt and my knees began to tremble. I saw now what it actually was.
It was a web.
‘What sort of spider could have made so many huge hanging webs such as these?’ I wondered.
It was Thorne who spoke his name.
‘It’s Raknid.’
RAKNID AND I had met once before, long ago, and his name brought another flood of terrible memories from my time with Lizzie. It had happened the month before she found the leather egg and we encountered Betsy Gammon.
It was at the Testing.
‘Well, girl,’ Lizzie had said to me one morning. ‘Got something for you to look forward to. In a week’s time, on Lammas Night, you’re for the Testing!’
Lammas was one of the four main witch sabbaths – the occasions when the most powerful magic was performed and the Pendle clans were at their most dangerous.
I didn’t like the look on Lizzie’s face. I knew that every girl trained as a witch had to undergo some sort of ritual called the Testing. But the details were never discussed; nothing was passed on from witch to witch.
‘But I’m not a Malkin, I’m a Deane!’ I protested. ‘My mother was a Malkin but my father was a Deane. I’m Alice Deane, so I don’t need to be tested.’
Lizzie gave me a strange smile. ‘You’re with me and being trained by me, so that makes you a Malkin – you’d better get used to it, girl.’
Now, years later, I know why Lizzie smiled so strangely. It turned out later that it was she who was my mother, and I’d been fathered by the Fiend – the Devil himself. But I didn’t know that then, so I fell silent. Lizzie often gave weird little smiles – all I was concerned with was the test. Part of me didn’t want to know what the Testing involved, but it was always better to be prepared for the worst.
‘What will I be tested for?’ I asked.
‘Two things, girl. First off to see what type of witchcraft would best suit you – bone magic, blood magic or familiar magic. Next to find out how strong a witch you’re likely to become.’
My mouth was really dry now, but I forced myself to ask the next question. ‘How do they test you? What do they do?’
Lizzie smirked. She was probably enjoying the look of fear on my face. ‘Best you just wait and see. You’ll find out on the night, girl. But in the meantime, there are three things you have to do in order to prepare for the Testing. From now on, don’t wash. You need a full week of dirt to cake your body so that you’ll be ready.’
‘Why do I need to be dirty?’ I asked.
‘Dirt and dark magic go together – I thought you knew that. The dirtier the skin, the darker and stronger the magic!
‘Secondly, don’t eat any meat – not even gravy or soup with a trace of meat in it. And thirdly, think hard about what you’d like to work with as a witch – blood, bone or a familiar. Because that’s one thing you’ll have to declare.’
I didn’t sleep the night before the Testing. I was dreading it, and my stomach was in twisty, tormenting knots. Some folk talk about having butterflies when they feel nervous. With me it was more like big fanged snakes and worms were writhing inside me, biting my insides.
I rose at dawn, but that meant I had the whole day to get through before the Testing at dusk. I really wanted to wash, but Lizzie had forbidden it, and I was mucky from head to toe, my hair caked with dirt. I kept scratching my itchy head, but that only seemed to make it worse.
Deanes didn’t usually go near Malkin Tower. If they got in, they’d most likely never come out alive. There were terrifying stories about bloodstained chambers far beneath it, where the Malkins tortured their enemies before throwing them into deep dank dungeons to starve to death.
The day passed, and soon we were walking through Crow Wood, and that dreadful dark stone tower was directly ahead. It was a scary place, all right, at least three times taller than the treetops. It reminded me of a castle tower because of the battlements on top, and the narrow pointy windows. It also had a wide moat with a drawbridge. But the big wooden door to the tower was closed. It was studded with rusty iron – a metal that witches could not bear to touch.
Lizzie walked onto the drawbridge and I followed reluctantly at her heels. Someone waved down to her from the battlements – probably one of the witches from her coven; a moment later we heard heavy bolts being drawn back, and then the door began to swing slowly open, grinding on its hinges. We stepped inside, and the door closed behind us. I stood there, eyes stinging from the smoke that filled the big gloomy room where the coven lived. I recognized some of their faces because I’d passed them in the village street. But some were complete strangers, and I wondered if they ever left the tower.
By now my mouth was dry, my heart beating against my ribs fit to burst. Terrible things happened in this tower. I feared that they might happen to me.
In the corners of the room there were fires with cooking pots – and heaps of bones. Some of these looked like animal bones, but others could easily have been human. There was also the stink of unwashed bodies and cooking fat; sacks and crumpled dirty sheets lay piled on the floor against the curve of the wall: obviously the witches’ beds. In the middle of the room was another fire with a large cauldron bubbling away over it.
The coven stared at me curiously. The witches were dressed in long dark gowns that looked none too clean and their faces were streaked with dirt and grease. They stank of stale sweat and animal fat. Lizzie was right: dirt and dark magic really did go together. But there was one tall woman who stood out from the rest; one who looked clean and bright-eyed. Her body was crisscrossed with leather straps, and fastened to them were sheaths, holding blades. One weapon wasn’t visible but everybody knew about it . . . She wore it in a special sheath under her left arm: it was a pair of pointy scissors, which she used to snip off the thumbs of her enemies.