John Law

The pedlar John Law was taking a short cut through that nick of Pendle Forest they call Boggart’s Hole. The afternoon was too warm for the time of year and he was hot in his winter clothes. He had to hurry. Already the light was thinning. Soon it would be dusk; the liminal hour – the Daylight Gate. He did not want to step through the light into whatever lay beyond the light.

His pack was bulky and his feet were sore. He slipped and put out his hand to save himself, but he sank wrist to elbow to knees into a brown bubbling mud, thick under the surface of the spongy moss. He was a heavy man. As he struggled to get up he saw the witch Alizon Device standing in front of him.

She was wheedling, smiling, flouncing her skirt. She wanted pins from his pack: Kiss me, fat pedlar. He didn’t want to kiss her. He wouldn’t give her pins. He heard the first owl. He must get away.

He pushed her roughly. She fell. She grabbed his leg to steady herself. He kicked her away. She hit her head.

He ran.

She cursed him. ‘FAT PEDLAR! CATCH HIM, FANCY, BITE FLESH TO BONE.’

He heard a dog snarling. He couldn’t see it. Her Familiar . . . it must be. The Devil had given her a spirit in the shape of a dog she called Fancy.

He ran. Stepping out of the furze another woman blocked his path. She held a dead lamb in her arms. He knew her: Alizon’s grand-dam. Old Demdike.

He ran. The women were laughing at him. Two of them? Three of them? Or was it the Devil himself stepping through the Daylight Gate?

*

John Law, running and falling, collapsed through the door of the Dog in Newchurch in Pendle an hour later. His lips were foamy. Men loosened his clothes. He held up three fingers and said one word: Demdike.