‘As I see it, my first duty is to keep you safe, lad. But nowhere in the County is secure any longer,’ he said. ‘For now, we can do nothing here. We’ll come back one day but we’re off to sea again.’
‘Where are we going – Sunderland Point?’ I asked, assuming we were going to try and reach the County port and get passage on a ship.
‘If it isn’t already in enemy hands, it’ll be full with refugees,’ the Spook said with a shake of his head. ‘No, I’m going to collect what’s owed me.’
That said, he led us quickly westwards.
Only very rarely did the Spook get paid promptly, and sometimes not at all. So he called in a debt. Years earlier he’d driven a sea-wraith from a fisherman’s cottage. Now, rather than coin, the payment he demanded was a bed for the night followed by a safe passage to Mona, the large island that lay out in the Irish Sea, north-west of the County.
Reluctantly the fisherman agreed to take us. He didn’t want to do it but he was scared of the man with the fierce glittering eyes who confronted him – who now seemed filled with new determination.
I thought I’d gained my sea legs on the voyage to Greece in the summer. How wrong I was. A small fishing boat was a very different proposition to the three-masted Celeste. Even before we were clear of the bay and out in the open sea, it started pitching and rolling alarmingly, and the dogs were soon whining nervously. Instead of watching the County recede into the distance, I spent the larger part of the voyage with my head over the side of the boat being violently sick.
‘Feeling better, lad?’ asked the Spook when I finally stopped vomiting.
‘A bit,’ I answered, looking towards Mona, which was now a smudge of green on the horizon. ‘Have you ever visited the island before?’
My master shook his head. ‘Never had any call to. I’ve had more than enough work to keep me busy in the County. But the islanders have their fair share of troubles with the dark. There are at least half a dozen bugganes there . . .’
‘What’s a buggane?’ I asked. I vaguely remembered seeing the word in the Spook’s Bestiary but I couldn’t remember anything about them. I knew we didn’t have them in the County now.
‘Well, lad, why don’t you look it up and find out?’ said the Spook, pulling the Bestiary from his bag and handing it to me. ‘It’s a type of daemon . . .’
I opened the Bestiary, flicked through to the section on daemons and quickly found the heading: BUGGANES.
‘Read it aloud, Tom!’ Alice insisted. ‘I’d like to know what’s what too.’
My master frowned at her, probably thinking it was spook’s business and nothing to do with her. But I began to read aloud as she’d asked:
‘The buggane is a category of daemon that frequents ruins and usually materializes as a black bull or a hairy man, although other forms are chosen if they suit its purpose. In marshy ground bugganes have been known to shape-shift into wormes.
‘The buggane makes two distinctive sounds – either bellowing like an enraged bull to warn off those who venture near its domain or whispering to its victims in a sinister human voice. It tells the afflicted that it is sapping their life force, and their terror lends the daemon even greater strength. Covering one’s ears is no protection – the voice of the buggane is heard right inside the head. Even the profoundly deaf have been known to fall victim to that insidious sound. Those who hear the whisper die within days unless they kill the buggane first. It stores the life force of each person it slays in a labyrinth, which it constructs far underground.
‘Bugganes are immune to salt and iron, which makes them hard both to kill and to confine. The only thing they are vulnerable to is a blade made from silver alloy, which must be driven into the heart of the buggane when it has fully materialized.’
‘Sounds really scary,’ said Alice.
‘Aye, there’s good reason to be both afraid and wary where a buggane is concerned,’ said the Spook. ‘It’s said they have no spooks on Mona, but from what I’ve heard they could certainly do with some. That’s why bugganes flourish there – there’s nobody to keep them in check.’
It suddenly began to drizzle and my master quickly seized the Bestiary from me, closed it and put it in his bag, out of harm’s way. It was his last book and he didn’t want it damaged any further.
‘What are the islanders like?’ I asked.
‘They’re a proud, stubborn people. They’re warlike too, with a strong force of paid conscripts called “yeomen”. But a small island like that would have no chance if the enemy looked beyond the County and chose to invade.’
‘The islanders ain’t going to welcome us, are they?’ Alice said.
The Spook nodded thoughtfully. ‘You could be right, girl. Refugees are rarely welcome anywhere. It just means extra mouths to feed. And a lot of folks will have fled the County and headed for Mona. There’s Ireland further to the west, but it’s a much longer journey and I’d prefer to stay as close to home as possible. If things are difficult, we could always head west later.’
As we approached the island, the waves became less choppy, but the drizzle was heavier now, and blowing straight into our faces. The weather and the green rolling hills ahead reminded me of the County. It was almost like coming home.
The fisherman put us ashore on the south-east of the island, tying his boat briefly to a wooden jetty that jutted out over a rocky shore. The three dogs leaped off the boat in turn, happy to be back on dry land, but we followed more slowly, our joints stiff after being confined in the boat for so long. It was just minutes before the fisherman put out to sea again. Silent and grim on the voyage across, now he was almost smiling. His debt to the Spook was paid and he was glad to see the back of us.
At the end of the jetty we saw four local fishermen sitting under a wooden shelter mending their nets; they watched us draw near with narrowed hostile eyes. My master was in the lead, his hood up against the rain, and he nodded in their direction. He got just one response: three of the men kept their eyes averted and continued with their work; the fourth spat onto the shingle.
‘Right, wasn’t I? We ain’t welcome here, Tom,’ Alice said. ‘Should have sailed further west to Ireland!’
‘Well, we’re here now, Alice, and we’ll just have to make the best of it,’ I told her.