Alice (10 page)

It was the spirit of Jacob Stone.

The first thing that struck me was that the old man didn’t look in the least afraid. He stared down at Lizzie calmly and patiently without uttering a word.

It was the first time I’d ever seen her summon a dead person like this. When most people die, they have to find their way through Limbo. After that they either go to the dark or the light, depending on what they are and how they’ve lived their lives. Those going to the light find their way across in a few days at the most. That’s why Lizzie had been so impatient to start the ritual. If a witch can summon a spirit, then she can hold him trapped in Limbo indefinitely and cause him enough pain to make him do what she wants.

As a spook, Jacob Stone would know all about what a witch like Lizzie could do to him. He should have been terrified at being held in Limbo at her mercy. But he wasn’t, and that was odd.

‘You’re mine, old man! Mine to do with as I please,’
Lizzie crowed. ‘Just tell me what I need to know and I’ll let you go. It’s as easy as that.’ She got right to the point. ‘What’s the purpose of the leather egg that I found under the floorboards of your house? What is it? What can it do?’

‘
I’ll tell you nothing
,’ Jacob Stone’s spirit said calmly. ‘
All my life I’ve fought the dark and tried to help the good people of the County. Why should it be different when I’m dead? I’ll do nothing to help you and your kind – nothing at all!
’

‘Won’t you now! Then I’ll make you suffer. Give you pain such as you’ve never had before!’

‘
I’ve suffered pain before and I’ve endured. I can do that again if need be!
’

‘Can you, old man? Don’t you remember how in recent months your knees were starting to play up? So much so that you were beginning to develop a bit of a limp. It was the result of too many years walking the County lines in the cold and damp. The sockets were starting to rot away. Now it’s getting worse. Can’t you feel it?’

‘
I’m a spirit! I have no body. I have no knees!
’ Jacob Stone cried. ‘
I can feel nothing! Nothing at all!
’

Lizzie began to chant again, and now the expression on his face began to change. The lines on his forehead deepened and his face began to contort, showing that, despite his brave words, he was now in extreme pain.

‘Not sure now, are you?’ Lizzie gloated, her voice ringing with triumph. ‘Your bones are grinding together inside their sockets. Your knees are starting to crumble. It’s agony. You can’t bear the agony a moment longer!’

Jacob Stone cried out and his face set in a grimace, but still he said nothing. Lizzie chanted again for a few moments, though I could tell that she was shaken by the old man’s resistance. Suddenly, in a paroxysm of fury, she pointed at his spirit and stamped her left foot three times.

‘I’m pushing a red-hot needle into your right eye!’ she cried. ‘Can you feel it twisting and piercing as it goes in deeper, inch by inch. Right into your brain it’s going! Answer my question and I’ll stop the pain. Then you can go on your way!’

The spook’s spirit cried out in agony, and I could see a trickle of blood flowing from his eye, down his right cheek, to drip off his chin. But still he did not tell Lizzie what she wanted to know.

It was a terrible thing to see – for him to be a spirit but still feel pain. I felt sorry for the dead spook and wanted to walk away to avoid seeing even worse. But I daren’t move: it would interrupt the ritual and Lizzie would be so angry with me that an encounter with sprogs would be the very least of my worries.

Her face was filled with intense concentration, but I could tell, by the way her mouth was twitching and her hands clenched and unclenched, that she’d failed to break the spook. A witch can only use such spells in short bursts before becoming weary. Lizzie simply couldn’t continue to give him such pain for more than ten or twenty seconds at a time. After that she would have to stop.

Releasing her breath angrily, Lizzie did just that. Then
she began to pace back and forth in front of the cauldron with her eyes closed, as if deep in thought.

Jacob Stone’s face was peaceful now. The pain had left him and he was staring down at the witch, looking calm and dignified.

Suddenly Lizzie halted and a crafty expression settled upon her face. ‘You’re tough, old man!’ she said. ‘You can stand pain, all right, I’ll give you that. But what happens if I hurt someone else? Have you any family?’

‘
I never married
,’ he said. ‘
A spook can’t be distracted by a woman. He dedicates his life to his trade – to his vocation. The people of the County are his family!
’

‘But you are the seventh son of a seventh son, so you’ll have brothers, and maybe sisters too! And no doubt they’ll have children. What if I bring one of your nephews or nieces here and hurt them? No doubt you’d tell me what I want to know to save that child pain!’

The spirit smiled. ‘
You’ve failed again, witch
,’ he told her. ‘
I was the seventh and youngest, but our house caught fire when I was still a child. My whole family died. My father got me to safety and then died of his burns. I have no family left for you to torment
.’

‘Does it have to be family, old man?’ Lizzie sneered. ‘Any child will do. To save a child from torment you’ll tell me exactly what I need to know.’

The spirit didn’t answer, though I could tell by the worried expression on his face that she was right. Lizzie gave a wild, wicked laugh and muttered a word under her breath. Immediately the face vanished, and the cloud above the cauldron dispersed into the night air.

‘He’s trapped until I release him,’ Lizzie told me. ‘We need to grab ourselves a child tomorrow – maybe more than one – and use it to break his spirit. Now go and make me some supper, and be quick about it!’

I went inside and did as Lizzie had ordered, just pleased to get away from her. I didn’t like the way things were developing. I’d known Lizzie murdered children to get their bones, but to hear her say it out loud made me feel sick to my stomach. Once she’d used the little ones to get what she needed from the spook, they’d be as good as dead.

After supper Lizzie made me clear away the plates and then give the table a really good scrub. Once it was dry she inspected it closely, her nose just inches from its surface.

‘You’ve done a good job, girl,’ she said at last. ‘Can’t be too careful. One speck of dirt could spoil everything.’

That said, she went and brought the leather egg down from its hiding place in her room and positioned it right in the centre of the table. Next she sat on a stool, leaned her elbows on the table and stared at the strange object for a long time. She didn’t move and I couldn’t even hear her breathing, but a couple of times she gave a sniff. Doing her best to learn all about it, she was.

I had a bad feeling about that egg. It was dangerous, I was sure. Didn’t even want to be in the same room.

‘What’s inside it – that’s what we need to know,’ muttered Lizzie, more to herself than me. ‘But it don’t feel right tonight . . .’ She gave a little shiver. ‘There are good times and bad times for delving into mysteries like this one,
and sometimes things shouldn’t be forced. Cutting it open might well ruin it. But there are other ways . . . I’ll think for a while and see what I can come up with.’

It seemed to me that it was always going to be a bad time to be meddling with that leather egg. But Lizzie would have her way. What could I do?

Putting an end to her muttering, Lizzie clutched the leather egg to her bosom and took it back up to its hiding place.

I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. I was curious about what was inside the egg too, but a sense of danger radiated from it. It was best left alone – I knew that for sure.

THE FOLLOWING DAY
, Lizzie became impatient once more. She wouldn’t touch the egg, but as the sun went down, decided to tackle the spirit of Jacob Stone again, forcing him to tell her what she needed to know about it.

As usual, the hard work of drawing the water, filling the big cauldron and lighting the fire was left to me.

This time the bones were free of the spook’s flesh. White and gleaming, they were, in the palm of Lizzie’s grubby left hand. When she tipped them into the cauldron, they sank briefly, but then bobbed up to the surface, just like the day before. Once again, the cauldron glowed and the cloud of steam rose above it – but this time there was one big difference.

The face of Jacob Stone was nowhere to be seen.

Lizzie muttered her spells with increasing desperation, but to no avail. ‘He’s broken free!’ she hissed. ‘Gone to the light, he has. Who would have thought the old man was that strong?’

I couldn’t believe it, either. Old Jacob Stone was really something. I wondered how he’d managed to do it. It made me realize that there was a lot Lizzie didn’t know – she certainly wasn’t all-powerful: even a dead spook could give her trouble.

But her failure to make the spook’s spirit tell her the secrets of the egg put Lizzie in a really foul mood.

That night I didn’t sleep well.

I got up early and went to carry out the first of my early morning chores. I began by collecting eggs, carefully searching the hedgerow on the eastern edge of the garden, where the youngest hens usually laid. I sniffed each egg twice to make sure, only placing Lizzie’s favourites in my basket. She liked the ones that contained blood-spots best – couldn’t get enough of ’em. Once I had half a dozen, I went back to the house. Lizzie was usually a late riser, but to my surprise she was up already, waiting in the kitchen like a cat ready for the cream.

She snatched the basket from me, put it on the table and selected one of the speckled eggs. After poking her fingernail into the end, she tipped back her head and poured the contents of the raw egg into her mouth. When she licked her lips, I could see big clots of blood on her tongue.

‘A tasty egg, that!’ Lizzie said. ‘It was nearly as good as a ready-to-hatch baby bird! Why don’t you try one, girl?’

I shook my head, wrinkling my nose in disgust.

‘You’re a fool, you are, to turn down good food. Could be all you get until tonight. No time for a cooked breakfast. We’re off right away.’

‘Off where?’ I asked.

‘You’ll find out soon enough, but we’ll be away for days up north, where our slimy sisters live . . . Let’s hope they don’t take a dislike to you!’

I didn’t bother to ask what she meant by ‘slimy sisters’ – no doubt I’d find out soon enough.

I was never happy being trained by Lizzie; sometimes it really got to me. I’d not ruled out the idea of trying to escape, but I didn’t feel confident of getting clear away. She was sure to come after me and drag me back. Still, if things were really bad and the chance presented itself, I knew I’d take it.

Lizzie soon finished off the other eggs, and then, after pushing me outside and locking the door, set off at a brisk pace, heading south-west. I followed at her heels as the sun climbed in the eastern sky. To the north-west lay the brooding mass of Pendle. Long before noon we had skirted its southern slopes and had reached the bank of the river Ribble.

Lizzie eyed the fording place doubtfully. ‘You’ll have to carry me across, girl,’ she snapped, leaping up onto my back and wrapping her arms around my neck.

Witches couldn’t cross running water. That was why you saw witch dams across most of the streams in the Pendle District. These devices temporarily halted the flow of water so that a witch could avoid a long detour. There was no possibility
of doing the same to a river as wide as the Ribble; it would take all my strength and Lizzie’s willpower to get her to the far bank.

I set off just as fast as I dared. I had to get her across before my energy failed. The stones sloping down from the bank were slippery, and when I reached the water it got worse. The river was quite high, and was rushing past my ankles with some force. Lizzie started shrieking with pain, and her arms tightened around my neck so that I could hardly breathe.

I staggered and almost fell – the water was up to my knees now. Just when I felt unable to take another step, the ground beneath my feet sloped upwards and the water level fell to my ankles again. We were almost there! We collapsed in a heap on the bank; I was trembling with exhaustion, and Lizzie was shaking with the pain and trauma of the crossing. She started cursing me fit to burst, but I knew that for once she didn’t mean it. She’d been really scared. Few things terrify a witch like running water. Lizzie had been brave to risk being carried across that wide river.

We rested for an hour and then continued west. By early evening we were climbing a big hill that Lizzie told me was Parlick Pike. At one point she halted and gazed out across the valley with narrowed eyes, as if searching for something. In the distance I could see Pendle. Nearby was another hill of a similar shape, which she said was called the Long Ridge. Nothing moved in the valley but sheep and cattle. Then Lizzie pointed to a large wood to the west. Beside it was a cluster of houses; smoke from the chimneys drifted eastwards with the breeze.

‘That’s Chipenden,’ she told me. ‘And on the edge of that wood lives a very dangerous spook. In his garden he has a relative of mine, Mother Malkin, still alive but trapped in a pit. She is one of the most powerful and dangerous witches Pendle has ever known. One day we’ll come back here to rescue her and put an end to him, but it’ll be much more difficult than it was dealing with Jacob Stone. It’s that John Gregory I told you about – he’s the most powerful spook who’s ever walked the lanes of the County.’