“OH! I’m sorry! Really sorry!” I cried out. “I didn’t mean to come into your cottage. I didn’t know it was occupied. I just wanted to shelter from the storm—”
“Of course you didn’t intend to come here, child,” the witch said, her voice a cruel rasp. “I brought you here with a spider spell. I lured you into my web. And now you’re in a right tangle, aren’t you?”
With those words, the blade swept down toward my head. I gasped in anticipation of pain and closed my eyes, but the next second she released me, and I opened them again. She was holding a clump of my hair. She’d used the knife to cut it off.
“Without my help, you’ll never get free—never leave this house,” she warned. “At least not while you’re still breathing. But if you’re obedient, I’ll let you go. So are you going to do exactly what I tell you?”
I was shaking like a leaf now and felt utterly weak and powerless. I still couldn’t move, apart from my mouth, which I opened to say, “Yes.”
“I can see you’re going to be a sensible boy,” the witch continued. “But if you get up to any tricks, I’ll set Snatcher on you. And you wouldn’t want to meet him. Snatch your bones, he will, and bring ’em straight back to me!”
By Snatcher I guessed she meant the boggart. The spook had been right. The bone breaker was being controlled by a witch.
“All you have to do is bring the spook to this house. He’ll be hunting me down soon enough, so I’ll deal with him once and for all.”
“Can’t you just bring him here the way you brought me?” I asked.
The witch shook her head. “Can’t use the spider spell on him. He’s too old and strong and crafty. Just tell him you were going to shelter from the storm in this cottage. Then you peered through the window and saw a child here, bound with rope to hooks on the wall while a witch stirred a big cauldron over a fire. That should do the trick. He’ll hope to take me by surprise, but I’ll be ready for him!”
“What will you do then?” I asked nervously.
The witch’s face cracked into a cruel smile. “Well, a spook’s bones are the most useful of all. Especially the thumbs. No doubt I’ll find something useful to do with the bits of him that are left over. Nothing ever goes to waste! But let me worry about that. You just bring him here. Once he’s through the door, I’ll do the rest, and you can get on your way and forget that you ever met me. What do you say?”
It was horrible. She wanted me to lure the spook to his death. But if I didn’t do as she said, I’d never leave the witch’s cottage. I’d be the one to die.
“I’ll do it,” I said, feeling like a coward. But what else could I have done?
The witch gave me a wicked smile, and instantly my limbs were released from the spell and I was free to move.
“Downstairs with you!” she commanded, then followed me into the kitchen and along to the small front room. She watched me from the front doorway as I walked away.
“Don’t forget, child! Snatcher would love your bones! Once he sniffs this lock of hair, he’ll be able to find you anywhere! No matter how far you run, he’ll follow. So do as I say, or it’ll be the worse for you. Bring that spook here by nightfall, or I’ll send Snatcher after you. And you’ll never see the sun rise again!”
Terrified, I set off in the direction the spook had indicated the previous night, my mind spinning with all that had happened. I felt as if I’d stepped into a nightmare—one that I’d never wake up from.
The thunder was rumbling away into the distance, and the rain was now little more than drizzle. But another storm was exploding inside my head. What if I simply turned and headed toward Houghton? Could the boggart really follow and find me anywhere I went? Or was the witch just saying that to scare me? It seemed too big a chance to take. So I kept walking toward the place where the spook should be.
What if I just told him the truth—that she’d ordered me to lure him back to the cottage? Would he be able to help me? It didn’t seem likely. After all, he’d failed to protect his own apprentice against the boggart.
It didn’t take me long to find the spook. Grimshaw Wood, mainly composed of bare ash, oak, and sycamore trees, lay in a narrow valley. As I approached its southern end, my feet sinking into the dank moldering autumn leaves, I could hear someone digging in the soft earth.
There, close to the roots of an ancient oak, two riggers in shirtsleeves were digging a pit. The spook was watching them with folded arms. Nearby stood a horse and cart with a large flat stone tied to the boards. As I drew nearer, the spook turned to watch me, but the men continued working, not even giving a single glance in my direction.
“What’s wrong, boy? Lost again?” he demanded.
“I’ve found the witch,” I told him. “I was going to shelter from the storm in what I thought was an abandoned cottage. But I looked through the window and saw a child tied up and a witch stirring a big cauldron. . . .”
The spook looked at me hard, his eyes locked upon mine. “A child tied up, you say? That’s bad. But how do you know the woman was a witch?”
I thought quickly, remembering the feeling of cold I’d experienced as she approached the cottage. “I felt cold, really cold,” I told him. “It’s the same sort of feeling I get when I’m near a ghost—which is something from the dark like a witch, isn’t it?”
The spook nodded but looked suspicious. “See many ghosts, do you?”
“There are two in our cellar. A miner and the wife he killed.”
“What’s your name, boy?”
“John Gregory.”
The spook looked at me thoughtfully. “Have you any brothers, John?”
“Six,” I told him. “I’m the last one to leave home.”
“So you’re the youngest, no doubt. What about your father? How many brothers did he have?”
“Six as well, just like me. He was the youngest, too.”
“Do you know what that makes you, boy?”
I shook my head.
“It makes you a seventh son of a seventh son. You have gifts: the ability to see the dead and to deal with them if necessary, to talk to them and enable them to leave this world and go to the light. The strength to deal with witches, too, and all manner of other things that serve the dark. It’s a gift. Anyway, where is this cottage?” he asked, his voice suddenly very quiet.
“Back there. Not that far north of the barn where we stayed last night.”
“And you just happened to stumble upon a cottage where a witch is holding a child captive? Are you sure you’re telling me the truth, boy? You’re afraid, I can see that. And who can blame you, if that’s what you’ve really seen? But in my line of work it’s useful to be able to tell when someone’s telling a lie or holding something back. You rely on instincts and experience to do that. Looking at you, I’m getting that feeling now. Am I right, boy?”
I looked down. I couldn’t meet his gaze any longer. I began to tremble. “There is no child!” I admitted, blurting out the truth. “The witch made me say that. She cut off a lock of my hair and said the boggart would snatch my bones if I didn’t. She wants to lure you to the cottage. She said if I took you there she’d let me go. I’m sorry for lying, but I’m scared. Really scared! She said I’ve till nightfall to bring you back to her cottage. After that she’ll send her boggart after me.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said the spook. “Were you lying about feeling cold, too?”
I shook my head. “No, that’s true. I was trapped upstairs, and when she came into the cottage, I felt that strange chill.”
“So you really are a seventh son of a seventh son?”
I nodded.
“Well, I don’t tell lies, boy, under any circumstances. So I’m going to tell you the truth, unpleasant though it may be. The witch has a lock of your hair, and she can use it to weave dark spells. She could hurt you now if she wanted, make you feel seriously unwell. She can also use it to help the boggart track you down. There are mysterious lines of power under the earth—we call them ley lines, and the County is crisscrossed with them. Boggarts use them to travel quickly from place to place. That bone breaker could get to Houghton in the blinking of an eye and then snatch your bones, just as it did with my poor apprentice. And all the priests in that big seminary wouldn’t be able to help you. So you are in real danger, mark my words.
“But I’ll tell you something else for nothing. It would have done you no good at all to have gotten me to that cottage. She wouldn’t have let you go. She’d have taken your bones, too. We’re both seventh sons of seventh sons, and that’s why our bones are so valuable to a witch. They make the dark magic she uses more powerful. Anyway, let’s see what we can do to save ourselves from such a fate.”
The spook closed his eyes, deep in thought, and said nothing for several minutes. The only sound was the shovels cutting into the soft earth. I was very much aware of the passage of time. Sunset was drawing closer with every breath I took.
At last the spook looked at me and nodded as if he’d just arrived at an important decision. “We could go to the cottage together in full knowledge of what we face. There’s a chance that I might take the witch by surprise and bind her, although there’s the boggart to deal with as well. Not only that, but we’d be going into the witch’s territory. If she’s lived in that cottage for some time, it could be full of traps and dark magic spells.
“No,” he went on, his jaw suddenly firming with resolve. “Let her come to us. Let her face what we’ve prepared. Sorry, lads!” he called out to the two men. “That pit won’t do now. I’m afraid we’re going to have to start all over again elsewhere . . .”
The two men rested their arms on their shovels and glared at us, their expressions a mixture of annoyance and disbelief.
”Cheer up!” called the spook. “I’ll be paying you extra for your trouble. But we need to get a move on. Do you know Demdike Tower?”
“Aye,” the larger of the two men replied. “Nothing but a ruin, though. Place to keep well away from after dark, Mr. Horrocks, that’s for sure!”
“You’ll be safe enough with me,” said the spook. “And what lingers there couldn’t hurt you anyway. But we need to work fast. The boggart we’re out to trap will be there soon after the sun sets, so follow me as quick as you can!”
With those words he set off at a furious pace. I followed at his heels and glanced back to see that the two men were throwing their shovels onto the cart.
“Why will the boggart go to Demdike Tower?” I asked.
“You can’t be that wet behind the ears! Think about it, boy. Why do you think it’ll go there?”
Suddenly it dawned on me. “Because I’ll be there.”
“Aye, lad. You’ll be the bait.”