Joseph Delaney

by The Last Apprentice: The Spook's Tale;Other Horrors

  So I followed him through the trees, glancing nervously both left and right into the mist. It was said that spirits and all manner of creepy things were towed along in the wake of a spook because of his line of work. That’s why people usually crossed the road to avoid passing close to one—and here I was on a dark misty night near enough to touch him!

  He finally led me to an old wooden barn, and we settled ourselves down on some dry straw. There were holes in the roof and the door was missing, but it wasn’t raining and there was hardly any wind, so it was comfortable enough. The spook took a lantern from his bag and lit it while I opened my pack of cheese sandwiches and offered him one.

  He declined with a smile and a shake of his head. “Thanks for the offer, boy. That’s generous of you, but I’m working at present, and it’s my habit to fast when facing the dark!”

  “Is something from the dark nearby?” I asked nervously.

  He grimaced. “That’s more than likely. I buried my apprentice today. He was killed by a boggart. Do you know anything about boggarts?”

  I nodded. I’d been told that boggarts were spirits; they usually made a nuisance of themselves, scaring people by breaking plates or banging on doors. But I hadn’t heard of anyone being killed by one before.

  “There was one that plagued the Green Bottle Tavern in Horshaw for a while,” I told him. “It used to howl down the chimney and whistle through keyholes. It never hurt anybody, though, and after a few weeks it just disappeared.”

  “Sounds like a type we call a whistler, boy. They are mostly harmless. But there are lots of different kinds of boggarts, and some are more dangerous than others. For example, there are hall knockers, which usually just make noises. They feed on the fear they generate—that’s how they get their power. But hall-knockers sometimes change without warning into stone chuckers, which can hurl large rocks and kill people. But there are even worse types of boggarts. I’ve been trying to deal with what we call a bone breaker. They rob fresh graves, digging up the corpses, then scraping off the flesh and devouring the marrow inside the bones.”

  I shuddered at the gruesome picture he’d painted, but he hadn’t finished yet.

  “However, the worst of them develop a taste for the living. This happens when a witch gets involved. Some witches use bone magic as the source of their dark power. What better for such a malevolent witch than to control a bone breaker and get it to bring her what she needs!”

  I shivered. “Sounds horrible!” I told him.

  “It’s worse than that, boy. Soldiers fighting a battle rarely have to face such terrors. There I was, just two nights ago, on my way to bind a bone breaker, when the boggart struck. I heard it coming across the field, and I called out a warning to my apprentice. But it was too late. The boggart snatched the thumb bone of his left hand. Well, that’s what it wanted, but it took off the whole hand at the wrist. There was little I could do. I managed to stop the bleeding by binding his upper arm tightly with strips torn from his cloak. But he soon went blue round the lips and stopped breathing. The shock of the injury must have killed him.

  “That was totally unexpected,” continued the spook. “The boggart would have had no idea we were in the vicinity. Someone must have directed it to us. I suspect a witch must have been involved …”

  He fell silent and stared at the wall for a long time, as if reliving those terrible events. It gave me chance to study his face. The scar was exceedingly deep and ran from high on his forehead right down to his chin. He was lucky not to have lost the sight of his left eye. The scar cut a white swath through his eyebrow, and the two separated ridges of hair were not quite in line.

  The spook glanced at me quickly. I looked away, but he knew that I’d been studying his face. “Not a pretty sight, is it, boy?” he growled. “Another boggart did that—a stone chucker. But that’s another story.”

  “The boggart that killed your apprentice … is it close by?” I asked.

  “It won’t be far away, boy. It all happened less than a mile from here. Over yonder to the east,” he said, pointing through the open doorway. “Just south of Grimshaw Wood—and that’s where I’ll be heading at first light. The job needs finishing.”

  The thought of such a dangerous boggart so close to our shelter made me really nervous, and I jumped a few times when some noise outside disturbed me. But I was so tired that I eventually fell asleep.

  Soon after dawn, with a brief “Good morning” and a nod, the spook and I parted, and I continued north through the trees. The weather had changed. It was now unseasonably warm, and dark clouds were gathering overhead. I’d traveled less than a mile when I heard the first rumble of thunder. Soon forked lightning was splitting the sky with flash after jagged flash. I’d never liked thunder—it made me nervous, and I wanted to get away from the trees and the risk of being struck by lightning.

  Suddenly I saw what I took to be a ruined cottage ahead. One of the windows was boarded up, another had a broken pane, and the front door hung wide on its hinges. It seemed like a good place to shelter while the storm passed. But no sooner had I stepped inside than I realized I’d made a very big mistake.

  The place showed signs of recent occupation. The ashes of a fire were still smoking in the grate of the small front room, and I saw the stub of a fat candle on the window ledge. A candle made from black wax.

  When I saw that, my heart began to hammer with fear. It was said that witches used such candles: They were that dark color because blood had been stirred into the molten wax. This cottage must be a witch’s lair!

  I held my breath and listened very carefully. The cottage was totally silent. All I could hear was the rain drumming on the roof. Should I run for it? Was it safer out there, at the mercy of the elements? Ready to flee at the slightest hint of danger, I tiptoed to the kitchen doorway and peered through. What I saw was bad. Very bad …

  There were bones in an untidy heap in the far corner of the flagged floor: leg bones, arm bones, finger bones, and even a skull. But they weren’t just animal bones left over from cooking. My whole body started trembling at what I saw.

  They were human bones. And among them were thumb bones. Lots of them.

  I turned around and made straight for the cottage door, but I was too late. I glimpsed something through the broken window. Someone was approaching through the trees—a woman dressed in black, her long gown trailing on the wet grass. The sky was very dark now, and at first I couldn’t make out her face. But she suddenly came to a halt and the lightning flashed almost directly overhead, so I could see her clearly. How I wished I hadn’t! Her expression was cruel, her eyes narrow slits, her sharp nose almost fleshless. As I watched, she tilted her head upward, and I heard her sniff loudly three times. Then she started to move more quickly toward the cottage, as if she knew I was there.

  I ran back into the kitchen. Could I escape through the back door? Desperately I tried to open it. The door was locked and too sturdy to force open. There were only two places to go. Either up the stairs or down stone steps into the darkness of the cellar! It was no choice at all, so I quickly tiptoed upstairs. The witch would surely have reached the front door by now.

  I crept onto the landing and saw that there were only two bedrooms. Which one should I choose? There was no time to think. I opened the door and stepped into the first one. There was no bed, just a small table and lots of rubbish on the floor: a heap of moldering rags, pieces of a broken chair, and an old pair of pointy black shoes with the soles worn right through.

  I sat down on the floor and tried to keep as still as possible. I heard the witch enter the house. She crossed the front room and stepped into the kitchen. Would she come up the stairs?

  Lightning flashed just outside the window, to be answered by a loud crack of thunder. The storm was now almost directly overhead. I heard the click-click of the witch’s heels as she crossed the kitchen flags. Next the creaking of the wooden stairs. She was coming up toward me. And as she climbed, I began to feel very cold—the
same sort of cold I’d experienced when my dad had locked me in the cellar and I’d come face-to-face with the dead miner.

  Maybe the witch would go into the other room? This one was only a storeroom, but there might be a bed in the one next door. A bed where she’d settle down and go to sleep. I’d be able to sneak out of the house and make my escape then.

  “Please, God! Please!” I prayed silently. “Make her choose the other room!”

  But my prayer was in vain. My last desperate hopes were dashed as the witch came directly to the room where I was hiding. For a moment she paused outside: My heart pounded in my chest, the palms of my hands began to sweat, and the cold became more intense. Then she opened the door and looked down at me, her cruel eyes staring into mine so that I felt like a rabbit in thrall to a stoat. I tried to stand but found that I couldn’t even move. It wasn’t just fear. I was bound to the spot. Was she using dark magic against me?

  To my horror, the witch pulled a knife from the pocket of her black gown. It had a long, sharp blade and she held it out, moving toward me purposefully. Was she going to take some of my bones? She held the knife above my head and suddenly grasped me very tightly by my hair, twisting my head backward. She was going to kill me!

  CHAPTER III

  A Spook’s Bones

  “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.”