The word soon spread around the city that there was a spook who could deal with a jibber.
So while we enjoyed the payment for our success – a week’s stay at the inn – we were visited by others seeking our help.
The Spook refused to work with Alice again, but grudgingly allowed me to do so. So the night after our first visitation, Alice and I set out to deal with another jibber, this one plaguing the back workroom of a watchmaker’s premises. The man had fallen into debt and had killed himself late one night after drinking too much wine. His relatives needed to sell the shop, but couldn’t do so with a jibber in residence.
The encounter mirrored the first one at the inn almost exactly. After the rhythmic raps, a column of light appeared, and the spirit began its deadly work. However, it had hardly begun to jibber and jabber at us before Alice countered it with a spell. She did better than me, shutting it up quickly; for my part, I needed three attempts afterwards to send the spirit of the watchmaker to the light. It was no easy task: he’d had a difficult life, always counting his money and worrying about losing it. He didn’t have many happy memories that I could draw upon. But at last I managed it, and his spirit was free.
But then something happened that filled me with dismay. Beside the workbench I saw a shimmer, and a column of grey light appeared. It seemed that another spirit had joined us. And there, close to the top of the column, was a pair of eyes glaring at me with extreme malice. One was green and the other blue; they looked very like the ones that I had seen in the storm cloud, and I stepped back in alarm.
Then the column of light shimmered and a woman stood before us. She wasn’t present in the flesh – she was translucent, the candle on the workbench behind visible through her dark gown; it was her image projected from somewhere else. Suddenly I recognized her face. It was the witch that Bill Arkwright had killed.
I looked again, and with a stab of fright realized that this was the witch from my recurring dream.
‘I hope you enjoyed my storm!’ she cried, a gloating expression in her strange eyes. ‘I could have drowned you then, but I’m saving you for later. I have something else in mind! I’ve been waiting for you, boy! With jibbers to be dealt with, I knew you’d show up. How do you like them? It’s the best spell I’ve cast for many a long year.’
I didn’t reply, and the witch’s eyes swivelled towards Alice. ‘And this is Alice. I’ve been watching the pair of you. I’ve seen what good friends you are. Soon you’ll both be in my clutches.’
Angrily I stepped forward, placing myself between the witch and Alice.
She gave an ugly leer. ‘Ah! I see that you care for her. Thank you for that, boy. You’ve confirmed what I suspected. Now I know another way to hurt you. And hurt you I will. I’ll certainly pay you back many times over for what you’ve done!’
The image rapidly faded, and Alice came to my side. ‘Who was that, Tom?’ she asked. ‘She seemed to know you.’
‘Remember those eyes I saw in the cloud during the storm? It was her. Her face was that of the Celtic witch slain by Bill Arkwright.’
‘I think we’re both in danger. She has powerful magic – I can sense it,’ Alice said, her eyes wide. ‘Responsible for the jibbers, she is. She must be really powerful to do that.’
Back at the inn, we told the Spook of our encounter with the image of the witch.
‘It’s dangerous, being a spook,’ he said. ‘You could stop dealing with jibbers, but that would mean that many people would be harmed – innocent people who could be saved if you did your job bravely. It’s up to you. The witch is an unknown quantity – someone to be treated with great caution. I wouldn’t blame you for walking away. So what will you do?’
‘We’ll carry on – both of us,’ I said, nodding towards Alice.
‘Good lad – I thought that would be your answer … It still saddens me to think that the only way we can get rid of jibbers is by using dark magic,’ my master added. ‘Maybe things are changing, though. Maybe in the future that will be a new way for a spook to fight the dark, using the dark against itself. I don’t hold with it myself, but I’m from a different generation. I belong to the past, but you’re the future, lad. You’ll face new and different threats, and deal with them in a different way.’
So Alice and I continued with our work, and in the space of six days, together we freed two inns, another shop and five private houses from jibbers. Each time, Alice countered the spell, and I then talked the freed spirit out of Limbo and into the light. Each time we felt apprehensive, but the witch didn’t appear again. Was she bluffing and just trying to scare me away? But I had my job to do.
In contrast to the County, it seemed that the custom in Ireland was to pay someone immediately a job was completed, so we had plenty of money in our pockets. Then we had a visitor – someone who arrived on the seventh day, sending us off on a different course.
We were sitting at our usual table having breakfast. The inn still had no other customers, but the landlord was confident that the situation would soon change and had hinted that our departure would hasten the arrival of his first paying guest. Our presence here was now widely known, and although the inn was no longer haunted, few people would really wish to take a room in a place where a spook was staying. My master understood that, and we’d already decided to move our quarters later that day, probably heading south of the river Liffey, which divided the city.
I was just swallowing my last piece of bacon and mopping up my egg yolk with a wedge of buttered bread when a stranger entered the room from the street. He was a tall, upright man with white hair and a contrasting black beard and moustache. That alone was enough to earn him a second glance on any of the teeming Dublin thoroughfares; but add to that his clothes – a formal knee-length coat, neatly pressed black trousers and expensive boots, which marked him out as a gentleman of the first rank – and all eyes would have marked his passing. He also carried an ivory walking stick with a white handle in the shape of an eagle’s head.
The landlord rushed across to greet him, bowing low before welcoming him into the inn and offering him the best room. But the stranger was barely listening to his host; he was staring across at our table. Wasting no time, he came across and addressed the Spook.
‘Have I the pleasure of speaking to John Gregory?’ he asked. ‘And you must be Tom Ward,’ he added, looking at me. He gave just a curt nod in Alice’s direction.