'You mentioned that "elementals" live with the Ordeen as well? What kind are they?' I asked.
'Fire elementals – something we don't have in the County, lad. But I'll tell you what I know about them on another day. For now we'd better continue your study of the Old Tongue, which is much harder to learn than Latin or Greek.'
The Spook was right. The rest of the lesson was so difficult it made my head hurt. It was very important that I learn the Old Tongue though: it was commonly used by the Old Gods and their disciples; also in grimoires – books of dark magic used by necromancers.
I was relieved when the lesson came to a close and I was able to go up to my master's library. I really enjoyed my visits there. It was the Spook's pride and joy and he'd inherited it, along with the house, from his own master, Henry Horrocks. Some of the books had belonged to previous spooks and went back many generations; some had been written by John Gregory himself. They chronicled a lifetime of knowledge acquired practising his trade and fighting the dark.
The Spook always worried that something might happen to his library: when Alice was staying with us, her job had been to make extra copies of the books, writing them out by hand. Mr Gregory believed that one of his main duties was to preserve that library for future spooks, adding to the fund of knowledge whenever possible.
There were racks of shelves containing thousands of books but I headed straight for the Bestiary. It was a list of all sorts of creatures, from boggarts and daemons to elementals and witches, along with personal accounts and sketches where the Spook described how he'd dealt with the dark. I flicked through the pages until I came to 'Lamia Witches'.
The first Lamia was a powerful enchantress of great beauty. She loved Zeus, the leader of the Old Gods, who was already married to the goddess Hera. Unwisely, Lamia then bore Zeus' children. On discovering this, in a jealous rage, Hera slew all but one of these unfortunate infants. Driven insane by grief, Lamia began to kill children wherever she found them so that streams and rivers ran red with their blood and the air trembled with the cries of distraught parents. At last the Gods punished her by shifting her shape so that her lower body was sinuous and scaled like that of a serpent.
Thus changed, she now turned her attentions to young men. She would call to them in a forest glade, only her beautiful head and shoulders visible above the lush green grass. Once she had lured him close, she wrapped her lower body around her victim tightly, squeezing the breath from his helpless body as her mouth fastened upon his neck until the very last drop of blood was drained.
Lamia later had a lover called Chaemog, a spiderthing that dwelt in the deepest caverns of the earth. She bore him triplets, all female, and these were the first lamia witches. On their thirteenth birthday they quarrelled with their mother and, after a terrible fight, tore off all her limbs and ripped her body into pieces. They fed every bit of her, including her heart, to a herd of wild boar.
The book then went on to describe the different types of lamia witch – what they looked like, how they behaved – and, most importantly for a spook, how to deal with them. I knew quite a lot about lamia witches already. The Spook had lived for years with a domestic lamia witch called Meg and had kept her feral sister, Marcia, locked in a pit in the cellar of his Anglezarke house. They had both returned to Greece, but during my time at Anglezarke I'd learned a lot about them.
I continued to read, making brief notes as I did so. It was very useful revision. There was a reference to the flying lamias, called vaengir, which the Spook had mentioned earlier. My thoughts turned to Mam. Even as a young child I'd known that she was different. She had a slight accent, which marked her out as someone who'd not been born in the County. She shunned direct sunlight and during the day often had the kitchen curtains closed.
Over time my knowledge of Mam had grown. I'd learned how Dad had come to her rescue in Greece.
And then later she'd told me that I was special, a seventh son of a seventh son and her gift to the County, a weapon to be used against the dark. But the final pieces of the puzzle were still missing. What exactly was Mam?
Mam's sisters were vaengir – flying feral lamias who, as the Spook had just explained, were only rarely found beyond the Ordeen's portal. They were now in Malkin Tower, guarding her trunks, which contained money, potions and books. It seemed to me that Mam must also be a lamia. Probably vaengir too. That seemed most likely.
It was another mystery I needed to solve – though I couldn't just ask her outright. It seemed to me that Mam had to tell me herself. And I might find out the answer very soon.
Late in the afternoon, given a few hours off by the Spook, I went for a stroll on the fells: I climbed high onto Parlick Pike, watched the shadows of clouds slowly drifting across the valley below and listened to the lapwings' distinctive peewit calls.
How I missed Alice! We'd spent many a happy hour strolling up here with the County spread out below. Walking alone just wasn't the same. I was impatient now for the week to pass so the Spook and I could set off for Jack's farm. I was really looking forward to seeing Mam and finding out what she wanted from me.
Chapter 3
A CHANGELING?
On the morning we were due to set off, I walked down into Chipenden village to pick up the Spook's weekly provisions from the baker, the greengrocer and the butcher – after all we would only be away a few days. At the last shop I told the proprietor, a large red-bearded man, that if anyone came on spook's business and rang the bell at the withy trees, it would have to wait.
As I walked back through the village, my sack was lighter than usual because of the food shortages. To the south of the County the war was still raging and the reports were bad. Our forces were retreating and so much food was being taken to feed the army that the poorest people were close to starvation. I noted that in Chipenden conditions had deteriorated further. There were more hungry faces, and some houses had been abandoned, the families travelling north in the hope of a better life.
The Spook and I set off at a good pace, but even though I was carrying my staff and both our bags as usual, I didn't mind at all. I just couldn't wait to see Mam. After a while though, as the morning began to warm up, the Spook slowed down. I kept getting ahead and having to wait for him to catch up. He began to get rather irritated with me.
'Slow down, lad! Slow down!' he complained. 'My old bones are struggling to keep up. We've set off a day early – your mam won't arrive until midsummer's eve anyway!'