‘Couldn’t find any rabbits so these will have to do,’ she spat, holding up three dead rats by their tails. She tossed one at our feet.
‘I can spare one but I’ll need the other two. Need to build up my strength for what’s ahead, and rat’s blood is as good as anything. It’ll do until I take your thumbs, boy!’
‘Over my dead body!’ Alice shouted, rising angrily to her feet.
Bony Lizzie gave a wicked smile. ‘Let’s hope it don’t come to that, girl. Calm down. I’ve another use for the boy that should allow him to keep breathing a little while longer – that’s if things go well.’
The witch sat down and, setting one rat aside, lifted the other by its long thin tail. She bit its head off and spat it out, then started to suck the blood from its neck; some dribbled out of her mouth and down her chin. She drank noisily, and the unpleasant sounds made me feel sick to my stomach. I shuddered, and Alice reached across and squeezed my hand.
Lizzie looked at our joined hands, lowered the rat and smirked. ‘What a fool you are, girl!’ she told Alice. ‘No man’s worth a second glance. Never get too close to ’em. This boy will bring you down for sure. Be the ruin of you. Many a good witch has gone soft because of a man.’
‘Me and Tom are good friends,’ Alice retorted. ‘That’s something you know nothing about. Eating rats and killing people – that’s all you’re good for. Why did I have to have a mother like you? What did you want with the Fiend? Couldn’t you find a normal man?’
Lizzie’s expression hardened and she glared at Alice. ‘I’ve had men, but none of ’em have lasted long. They liked pretty young things, they did. Know why? Because they’re scared. Scared of a real woman in her prime. They look at me, see what I am and run back to their mothers. Know how old I am, girl?’
Alice shook her head and squeezed my hand again.
‘I turned forty just a week ago, the day after Old Gregory’s house burned and I got out of the pit. A Pendle witch comes into her prime at forty and inherits her full power. Now I’ve got the strength to deal with anybody. You, daughter, could be even stronger one day.’ Lizzie gave me an evil smile, staring straight into my eyes. ‘Know what Alice is, boy? She’s my gift to the County …’
She smirked meaningfully when she uttered that last bit. It was what Mam had once said about me in a letter to the Spook. Could Lizzie read my mind now? Pluck things out of it as if she were rifling through an open drawer?
‘She’s my special gift to the Pendle clans,’ the witch continued after a pause. ‘One day she’ll unite ’em once and for all, and then the world had better watch out!’
She went back to drinking the rat’s blood. Once it was drained she started on the second, sucking and slurping until there wasn’t a drop left. Seeing that we hadn’t touched the third, she took that one too.
Gradually it began to lighten inside the tree trunk, indicating that the dawn was close.
‘Are you thirsty?’ I asked Alice.
She nodded. ‘My throat’s parched.’
‘It’ll rain soon,’ Lizzie said, with an evil laugh. ‘Have all the water you want then!’
She was right. Within the hour it began to rain. First a light pitter-patter against the tree, soon followed by the drumming of a heavy downpour. Hour after hour it went on, and water began to drip into the tree, eventually cascading down the inside of the trunk.
It was running water, and Lizzie didn’t like that, so she moved away from the trunk, but Alice and I caught enough in our cupped hands to slake the worst of our thirst. It must have been early in the afternoon when the rain eased. It was then that we heard the dogs.
Lizzie gave a gloating smile and moved across to lean against the wood once more. ‘Dogs got our scent,’ she said. ‘Not that it’ll do ’em much good. Not when they enter the yard …’
I pictured the dogs running towards the bone-yard, heading towards the tree at its centre. Their speed would carry them close before the pressure crushed them.
‘Claw and her pups …’ I said, looking with dismay at Alice.
‘He won’t be using them, boy, you needn’t fear. He’s another use for those dogs,’ said Lizzie. ‘He’ll want you to fight ’em – and to the death!’
‘How can you know that?’ I asked angrily.
She smirked. ‘Easy to read, he is. That’s what he had planned last night. First you’d fight me, then, if you won, Alice. Finally your own dogs. Sniffed it out, I did. They call that type of bet a treble. Each win is carried forward to the next stage. Gives you a big pay-day if you win all three. Odds were against you, but the shaman liked those odds. Didn’t work out for him, did it? But given half the chance he’ll still pit you against those dogs. Just you wait and see …’
The barking was getting closer, but the sound quickly turned to yelps and whines as the first of them blundered into the bone-yard and started to feel the pressure exerted by Lizzie’s dark magic.
‘Won’t get too close so they won’t know our exact hiding place,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t help them if they did though. We’re safe enough here – at least from the likes of them.’
Now I heard men shouting and cursing in the distance, calling their dogs back. Then there was suddenly a louder scream. This time it came from a human throat and Lizzie smiled. It went on for a long time and Alice covered her ears. At last, except for the patter of light rain, there was silence.
The time passed slowly but my mind raced. I was desperately trying to think of a way out of this. I still had my staff and my chain, but even if I could bind Lizzie again, what could Alice and I do against the buggane?
As it started to get dark, we heard a noise emanating from the tunnels. Had the shaman’s men found us? But as the sounds drew closer, they became more disturbing. I’d heard them before.
‘It’s found us at last,’ said Lizzie. ‘Certainly took its time.’
Now I could hear a snuffling: the buggane had arrived. Lizzie crawled to the centre of the hollow tree, pulled out the stub of her black wax candle and said a word under her breath. It ignited just in time to illuminate the monstrous hairy head of the buggane as it protruded from the mouth of the tunnel. Its big cruel eyes looked at us one by one, finally settling on Bony Lizzie. Rather than retreating, the witch shuffled forward on her knees and slowly stretched out her hand.