‘So we have one – that’s a start. What is it?’
‘Grimalkin doesn’t know. Slake wouldn’t let her see it.’
‘Why not? Why should the lamia decide that? She’s the guardian of the trunk, not the owner.’
‘It wasn’t Slake’s idea – it was your mam’s. She said nobody but you could know what it was or see it.’
‘This was in Mam’s writings that Slake found in the trunk?’
‘No, Tom,’ Alice said, shaking her head sadly. ‘Your mam appeared to Slake and told her that directly.’
I looked at Alice in astonishment. Since Mam died I’d had contact with her once, on the ship on the way home from Greece – but I hadn’t seen her; it had just been a feeling of warmth. At the time, I’d been certain that she’d come to say goodbye to her son. But as time had passed I’d become less and less sure that it had really happened. Now it seemed more like dreaming than waking. But could she really have been talking to Slake?
‘Why would she tell Slake that? Why not tell me directly? I need to know – I’m her son!’ Suddenly I felt angry. I tried to suppress the feeling but I felt tears prickling behind my eyes. I missed Mam terribly. Why hadn’t she contacted me?
‘I knew you’d be upset, Tom, but please try not to let it bother you. It might be easier for her to talk to Slake. After all, they are both lamias. There’s something else I should tell you. Grimalkin said the lamia sisters talked about her as if she were still alive. And they worship her. They call her Zenobia.’
I took a deep breath to calm myself. It made sense. Mam had been the very first lamia, a powerful and evil servant of the dark. But she had changed: after marrying Dad she’d finally turned her back on her former life and become an enemy of the Fiend.
‘Perhaps she’ll talk to me when I get to the tower?’ I suggested.
‘Ain’t good to build up your hopes too much, Tom. But yes, she might. Now, there’s something else I’d like to ask. It’s important to me, but if you say no I’ll understand.’
‘If it’s important to you, Alice, I won’t say no. You should know me better than that.’
‘It’s just that, on our way to the tower, we’ll be passing by Witch Dell. Grimalkin said that part of it was burned by the Fiend’s supporters as they pursued her, but that Agnes Sowerbutts might have survived. She was my friend as well as my aunt, Tom. She helped me a lot. If she’s still in there, I’d like to talk to her one last time.’
‘I thought it was best to stay away from dead witches: the longer they stay in the dell, the more they change, forgetting their past life, their family and friends.’
‘That’s mostly true, Tom – their personalities change for the worse, which means that living and dead witches don’t mingle much. But Agnes ain’t been dead for long and I feel sure she’ll still remember me.’
‘If she did survive, how will you find her? We can’t just wander through the dell with all those dead witches around. Some are really strong and dangerous.’
‘Grimalkin told me that there’s probably only one strong one around at the moment. But there’s a call I sometimes used to contact Agnes. She taught it to me herself. It’s the cry of the corpsefowl. That’ll bring her out.’
The sun went down and the copse grew darker. It was a clear moonless night – the moon wouldn’t rise for several hours – but the sky was sprinkled with stars. Keeping to the shelter of hedgerows, we began a meandering journey south towards the tower, finally skirting the eastern edge of Witch Dell. We could see the devastation caused by the fire – a wide swath of burned trees cut it in half. It must have destroyed a lot of dead witches, many of them with allegiance to the Fiend. I realized that his supporters would do anything to retrieve his head.
We stopped about fifty yards from the dell’s southern tip. There were signs of the terrible battle between Grimalkin and her witch opponents. She was formidable, but I wondered at the size of the forces that were hunting her down – and about Alice’s part in all this.
Alice cupped her hands around her mouth and sent an eerie call out into the darkness. The corpsefowl – or nightjar – flies by night, and the cry sent shivers down my spine. The powerful water witch, Morwena, had used a corpsefowl as her familiar, and I had some scary memories of being hunted by her. I remembered the time she had surged up out of the marsh, hooked me with a talon and tried to drag me down to drain my blood.
I couldn’t tell the difference between Alice’s cry and the real thing, but she told me she modulated it slightly so that Agnes would know it was her and not just a bird.
Every five minutes, Alice repeated that cry. Each time, that eldritch call, echoing amongst the trees of the dell, made me shudder. Each time it went out into the darkness, my heart beat harder: the bad memories came flooding back. Claw had bitten off the witch’s finger and saved me. Otherwise I’d have been dragged down into the marsh, my blood drained before I’d even had time to drown. I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind and tried to stay calm, slowing my breathing as my master had taught me.
Alice was about to give up when, after the eighth attempt, I suddenly felt cold. It was the warning that something from the dark was approaching. Everything became unnaturally still and silent. Then there was a rustle of grass, followed by low squelching noises. Something was approaching across the soggy ground. Soon I could hear snuffling and grunting.
Within moments, we spotted a dead witch crawling towards us. It could have been any dead witch out hunting for blood, thinking we were likely prey, so I tightened my grip on my staff.
Alice quickly sniffed twice, checking for danger. ‘It’s Agnes,’ she whispered.
I could hear the witch sniffing the ground, finding her way towards us. Then I saw her: she was a sorry creature indeed, and the sight brought a lump to my throat. She had always been such a clean, houseproud woman; now she wore a tatty dress that was caked in dirt and her hair was greasy and wriggling with maggots. She smelled very strongly of leaf mould. I needn’t have been concerned that she might have forgotten us: as soon as she came close she began to sob, the tears running down her cheeks to drip onto the grass. Then she sat up and put her head in her hands.
‘Sorry to be so maudlin, Alice,’ she cried, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘I thought it was bad when my husband died – I missed him terribly for many a long year – but this is far worse. I just can’t get used to being like this. I wish the fire had taken me. I can never go back to my cottage and live my old comfortable life. I’ll never be happy again. If only I’d been a strong dead witch. At least then I’d have been able to travel by night and hunt far from this miserable dell. But I’m not strong enough to catch anything big. Beetles, voles and mice are the best I can hope for!’