THE SPOOK WAS perched on a log in his garden at Chipenden, the sun singing through the trees and the air bright with birdsong. It was a warm spring morning in late May – as good as it got in the County. Things seemed to be changing for the better. I was sitting on the grass wolfing down my breakfast and he was smiling to himself and looking quite contented for a change as he gazed back towards the house.
From it came the sound of sawing; I could smell the sawdust. My master’s house was being repaired, starting with the roof. It had been burned out by enemy soldiers, but now the war in the County was over, and it was time to rebuild and get on with our lives as a Spook and his apprentice dealing with all manner of things from the dark – boggarts, ghosts, ghasts and witches.
‘I can’t understand why Alice would leave like that without saying anything,’ I complained to the Spook. ‘It’s not like her at all. Especially as she knows we’ll soon be setting off east and will be away for at least a couple of days.’
My friend Alice had disappeared three nights earlier. I had been talking to her in the garden and had left briefly to tell the Spook something, saying I’d be back in a few moments. On my return she had gone. At first I hadn’t been too worried, but then she’d missed supper and hadn’t reappeared since.
The Spook sighed. ‘Don’t take this too hard, lad, but maybe she’s gone for good. After all, you’ve been bound together for quite some time by the need to use that blood jar. Now she’s free to do as she pleases. And she’s a different person after being dragged off to the dark and held there for so long.’
My master’s words were harsh. Despite the fact that she had been helping us for years, he still didn’t trust Alice. She’d been born in Pendle and had spent two years being trained as a witch; John Gregory would be glad to see the back of her. When we were in Greece, Alice had created a blood jar to keep the Fiend at bay; otherwise we would both have been snatched away into the dark. Now it was no longer needed. We had bound the Fiend and cut off his head – which was now in the possession of Grimalkin, the witch assassin. She was on the run from his servants. Were the two halves of his body ever reunited, he would be free again and his vengeance would certainly be terrible. The consequences would be dire, not only for the County, but for the whole world beyond it; a new age of darkness would begin. But we had bought a little time in order to seek a way to destroy him permanently.
My master’s final words hurt me most of all. The Fiend had taken Alice off into the dark; on her return she’d changed dramatically. Her hair had turned white: that was merely physical, but I feared that her soul had been damaged – that she’d moved closer to the dark. Alice had expressed that same concern. Maybe she would never return? Maybe she could no longer be close to a spook’s apprentice? After four years of facing dangers together, we had become close friends and it saddened me that we were now drifting apart. I remembered something my dad had told me when I was younger. Although just an ordinary farmer, he’d been wise, and as I was growing up he’d taught me lots of truths about life.
‘Listen, Tom,’ he’d once said. ‘You have to accept that in this world things are constantly changing. Nothing stays the same for ever. We have to learn to live with that.’
He was right: I’d been happy living at home with my family. Now Mam and Dad were both dead and I could never go back to that life. I just hoped that my friendship with Alice wasn’t coming to an end too.
‘What sort of place is Todmorden?’ I asked, changing the subject. There was no point in arguing with my master about Alice.
‘Well, lad, my duties have never taken me to that town but I do know a bit about it. Todmorden straddles the eastern County border, which is marked by the river Calder. So half the town is in the County and half is beyond it. No doubt the folk across the river will have different customs and attitudes. We’ve travelled a bit in the past two years – firstly to Greece, next to the Isle of Mona, and finally to Ireland. Each of those lands presented us with new problems and difficulties to overcome. The fact that our destination isn’t far from home doesn’t change the fact that we need to be on our toes.’
The Spook’s library had been destroyed in the fire – the legacy of generations of spooks, filled with knowledge of how to fight the dark. Now we had heard of a collection of books about the dark in Todmorden. After ringing the bell at the withy trees crossroads late one night a week earlier, a mysterious visitor had left a note for us. It had been short but to the point:
Only one book from my master’s original library remained – the Bestiary that he had written and illustrated himself. It was more than just a book. It was a living, working document annotated by his other apprentices – including me. It was a record of his life’s work and what he had discovered with the help of others. Now he hoped to start restocking his library. However, he refused to take any books from the small collection in the watermill north of Caster that had been occupied by Bill Arkwright, one of his ex-apprentices. He had hopes that one day the mill would become a spook’s house once more; if that happened, the new incumbent would need those books. John Gregory anticipated that the visit to Todmorden would be the first step to replacing his own library.
My master had originally intended to set off right away but, as interested as he was in acquiring books, the rebuilding of his house came first, and he had spent hours going over plans and schedules with the builder. He had a list of priorities, and the completion of a new library to house books was one of them. I’d encouraged him in that because I wanted to delay our departure to give Alice time to return.
‘What’s the point of getting new books if we haven’t a library ready to put them in?’ I’d argued.
He’d agreed, and it had bought me more time, but at last we were off to meet Mistress Fresque.
In the afternoon, about an hour or so before we were to set off on our journey, I wrote a note of my own. This one was for the absent Alice:
But no sooner had I pinned it to the new back door than I suddenly sensed a coldness – the warning I sometimes get that something from the dark is nearby. Then I heard someone coming up behind me. My staff was leaning against the wall, so I snatched it up and spun round to face the danger, holding it in the defensive diagonal position.
To my surprise, Alice was standing before me. She was smiling but looked tired and dishevelled, as if she’d been on a long wearisome journey. The coldness quickly faded. She wasn’t an enemy, but that brief warning worried me. To what extent had she been contaminated by the dark? I wondered.