That last sentence was spoken with an edge of sarcasm. Alice and I were in a very bad predicament and he could do nothing about it. The previous year, in order to save the lives of many people, including the Spook and Alice, I’d sold my soul to the Fiend – the Devil himself, the dark made flesh. He had been summoned to earth by a gathering of the Pendle witch clans, and was now growing ever more powerful: a new age of darkness had come to our world.
Only Alice’s dark magic now prevented the Devil from coming to collect my soul. She’d put three drops of her blood and three drops of mine together in what was called a ‘blood jar’. I carried it in my pocket, and now the Fiend couldn’t come near me – but Alice had to stay close by in order to share its protection.
There was always a risk that somehow I might get separated from the jar and be beyond its protective spell. Not only that: when I died – whether that was six or sixty years hence – the Fiend would be waiting to claim what belonged to him and would subject me to an eternity of torment. The only way out was to somehow destroy or bind him first. The prospect of the task weighed heavy on my shoulders.
Grimalkin, the witch assassin of the Malkin clan, was an enemy of the Fiend; she believed that he could be bound in a pit if he was pierced with silver-alloy spikes. Alice had made contact, and she had agreed to join us in order to attempt this. But long weeks had passed, and there had been no further communication from Grimalkin: Alice feared that, invincible though she was, something had happened to her. The County was occupied by foreign troops – maybe they had moved against the Pendle witches, slaying or imprisoning them. Whatever the truth, that blood jar was as important as ever.
Soon after dark, carrying a candle, the Spook led us up to the attic – the small cramped room right at the top of the inn where the poor servant girl had lived and died.
The bed had been stripped of its mattress, sheets and pillows. At the side of the bed nearest the window, I saw dark bloodstains on the floorboards. The Spook set his candle down on the little bedside table, and the three of us made ourselves as comfortable as possible on the floor just in front of the closed door. Then we waited. It was reasonable to expect that if the jibber was in need of victims tonight, it would come for us. After all, there was nobody else staying at the inn.
I’d filled my pockets with salt and iron – substances that usually worked against boggarts and, to a lesser extent, witches. But if Alice’s theory was correct and we were dealing with a trapped, dangerous spirit, salt and iron would be ineffective.
We didn’t have long to wait before the jibber arrived. Something invisible began to rap on the floorboards. There were two quick knocks, then three slow ones. It happened over and over again, and my nerves were on edge. Next the candle flickered and there was a sudden chill in the air; I had an even colder feeling inside – the warning that a seventh son of a seventh son often receives when something from the dark approaches.
Directly above the bloodstains a column of purple light appeared; the sound that emanated from it confirmed that the jibber had been well named. The voice was high and girlish and sibilant. It jabbered nonsense, jarring my ears, making me feel uncomfortable and slightly dizzy. It was as if the world had tilted and I was unable to keep my balance.
I sensed the malevolence of the jibber: it wanted to hurt me very badly. It wanted my death. No doubt the Spook and Alice could hear the same disturbing sounds, but I glanced right and left, and neither was moving; they were just staring, wide-eyed, at the column of light as if transfixed.
But despite my dizziness I could move, and I decided to act before the jabbering got right inside my head and made me do exactly what it wanted. I rose to my feet and strode forward, plunging my hands into my breeches pockets: my right hand seized salt, my left iron filings. I flung both handfuls at the column of light.
The substances came together perfectly, right on target. It was a good shot. The bad news was that nothing happened. The column continued to shimmer, and particles of salt and iron fell harmlessly and ended up scattered across the floorboards beside the bed.
Now the jibbering started to hurt. It felt as if sharp pins were being driven into my eyes and a band of steel was tightening across my forehead, slowly crushing my skull. I felt panic rising within me. At some point I would no longer be able to tolerate the pain. Would I be driven to madness? I wondered. Pushed to do something suicidal to end my torment?
With a shock, I realized something else then. The jabbering wasn’t just meaningless prattling. The speed and sibilance had fooled me at first. This was the Old Tongue; a pattern of words. It was a spell!
The candle suddenly guttered out, plunging us in darkness – though the purple light was still visible. All at once I found that I was unable to move. I wanted to leave this claustrophobic attic where that poor girl had killed herself, but I couldn’t – I was rooted to the spot. I felt dizzy too, and lost my balance. I tottered and fell hard onto my left side. I was aware of a sharp pain, as if I’d fallen on a stone.
As I struggled to rise, I heard another voice – a female voice, also chanting in the Old Tongue. This second voice grew louder while the first quickly died down until it had faded away altogether. To my relief, the jibbering had stopped.
Then I heard a sudden anguished cry. I realized that the second voice was Alice’s – she’d used a spell of her own to end the jibber. The spirit of the girl was now free, but in torment. It knew that it was dead and trapped in Limbo.
Now there was a third voice, deeper, male – one that I knew well. It was the Spook.
‘Listen, girl,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to stay here …’
Befuddled as I was, for a moment I thought he was talking to Alice; then I understood that he was addressing the spirit of the dead girl.
‘Go to the light,’ he commanded. ‘Go to the light now!’
There was a wail of anguish. ‘I can’t!’ cried the spirit. ‘I’m lost in the mist. I can’t find my way.’
‘The way is in front of you. Look carefully and you’ll see the path to the light.’
‘I chose to end my life. That was wrong, and now I’m being punished!’
It was always much harder for suicides and those who had died sudden violent deaths to find their way to the light. They sometimes wandered within the mists of Limbo for years. But it could be done. A spook could help.
‘You are punishing yourself unnecessarily,’ my master told the girl’s spirit. ‘There’s no need. You were unhappy. You didn’t know what you were doing. I want you to think very carefully now. Have you a happy memory of your earlier life?’