Spook's Destiny (28 page)

I nodded. ‘Yes, it’s true. We’re free again, Alice.’

She smiled and took my hand. ‘So we have a little time, Tom – a little breathing space to think of a way to sort him out once and for all.’

I frowned. ‘But the first thing is to get back to Shey’s house,’ I said. ‘After that business in the chicken coop I doubt we’ll be welcome there any more. You do remember what happened there …?’

Alice nodded sadly. ‘I remember everything,’ she said. ‘I’ll try and explain tomorrow.’

As we set off, I looked back. Four or five crows were pecking at something on the grass. One took flight, swooping low over us before soaring up to land on a branch. In its beak it was holding one of the dead witch’s fingers.

I gripped Alice’s hand even more tightly. It was good to be together again.

Back at the house, it took all my powers of persuasion to deflect Shey’s anger from Alice; but, with the Spook’s help, he and his men were finally persuaded that she had been under the influence of a spell, but was now restored to her old self.

With that first crisis over, we decided not to tell the Spook anything for now. I knew he was wondering what had really happened, but realized that this was not the time to question us closely.

We didn’t even have the problem of explaining away the lacerations to our wrists. By the time we reached the house they were almost completely healed – with no scars to show what had been done to us. Healing was a benign act, but the exercise of such extreme power could only have come from the dark. Exhausted though I was, I slept little for the remainder of that night.

In the morning there was news of the war brought by a despatch rider from Dublin.

The Spook came to tell me himself:

‘Good news, lad, really good news. The enemy have been defeated in a big battle north of Priestown and have fled in disarray to the very southern border of the County. They are now in full retreat. We can go home, lad, back to the County. I can rebuild my house and start to collect and write books for a new library!’ There were tears glistening in his eyes; tears of hope and joy.

But despite that good news, I dreaded my forthcoming talk with Alice. What had happened to her in the dark? What had she become? Why could she never be better again? Was she a malevolent witch at last? The way she had slain our enemies the previous night made it look that way.

After everyone had gone to bed and the house was quiet, I went to talk to Alice. This time I didn’t bother to rap on her bedroom door. She was expecting me, and I certainly didn’t want to risk waking the Spook, whose room was just a little way down the corridor.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring through the window into the darkness. As I entered the room, softly closing the door behind me, she turned towards me and smiled. I picked up the candle from the dressing table and set it on the window ledge. Next I drew up a chair and sat down facing her.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

‘All right, Tom. Leastways, I ain’t too bad as long as I don’t think about what’s happened.’

‘Do you want to talk about it? Would that help or just make it worse?’

‘Whether I want to talk about it or not ain’t the point, Tom. You deserve to know it all. Then you’ve got to decide if you still want to be my friend.’

‘Whatever you tell me, I’ll still be your friend,’ I told her. ‘We’ve been through too much together to go our separate ways now. And we need each other to survive. But for you I’d be dead now – cut to pieces by that witch and fed to the crows.’

‘What I did I can’t undo. And I wouldn’t if I could – otherwise I’d have lost you for ever, and lost my own life too.
But I liked it, Tom
. That’s the horror. I enjoyed destroying that witch. Whenever I hurt or killed something from the dark before, I felt sick afterwards, but not this time. I liked testing my strength against hers. I liked winning. I’ve changed. I’m like Grimalkin now. That’s how she feels. She loves a fight! I killed – and I didn’t care!’

‘Is it because you’ve spent so long in the dark, do you think?’ I asked, keeping my voice low. ‘Is that what’s changed you?’

‘Must be, Tom, and I can’t help it. When I came back from the dark, I didn’t think it was real at first. I thought I was still there. That’s why I was scared and shrank away from you. Those who served the Fiend often played tricks like that on me. Once before, I thought they’d sent me back to our world. I saw you at the edge of a wood. Really thought it was you too. You smiled at me and squeezed my hand. But it was just a trick. You slowly turned into a devil. I watched your face warp, and twisty horns start to sprout from your forehead. And I realized that I hadn’t left the dark at all. So I thought what Pan said was just another trick and the same was going to happen again. I thought you were just a devil with a human face.’

I nodded. I had thought Alice was insane, but what she said made perfect sense. It would be the natural reaction of somebody who thought that the world wasn’t real; that it was an illusion created by the dark to torment her.

‘But how did you know it was me this time?’ I asked. ‘Even though they tied me to the tree and were about to kill me, it could still have been a trick.’

‘When I was trapped in the dark, the devil that pretended to be you had his arms covered. But here, as soon as they ripped your sleeves off, I saw my brand on your arm, Tom. That mark is very special to me and you – it couldn’t be faked even by the Fiend himself!’

The scars she’d left on my arm had never faded. It was her special brand that marked me as belonging to her and no other witch.

I nodded, but then thought of something else. ‘But what about the chicken coop, Alice? What about that? Why did you do that?’

Alice shivered, so I leaned forward and put my arm around her shoulder. It was a long time before she answered.

‘I’d only thought to escape and was heading for the wall. But then I smelled the warm blood pumping through their veins and I couldn’t help myself. It was a terrible urge to drink blood. Being in the dark has changed me, Tom. Ain’t the same, am I? I think I belong to the dark now. What if I can’t cross running water any more? Old Gregory will know what I am instantly!’

This was really worrying. If my master had firm proof that Alice was a dark witch, he’d bind her in a pit for the rest of her life; no matter how good a friend she’d proved, he would do what he thought was his duty as a spook.

I thought back to the words Mam had once spoken about Alice:

She was born with the heart of a witch and she’s little choice but to follow that path
.

But then Mam had gone on to say that there was more than one type of witch: Alice might turn out to be benign rather than malevolent. The third possibility was that she would end up somewhere between good and evil.

That girl could become the bane of your life, a blight, a poison on everything you do
, she had told me.
Or she might just turn out to be the best and strongest friend you’ll ever have
.

In my mind there was no doubt that the latter was true. But was it possible that Alice could become a malevolent witch and
still
be my ally? Wasn’t that true of Grimalkin?

But I had one more question: ‘Alice – where did you get all that power from? Is it because you were in the dark for so long?’

Alice nodded but she looked doubtful. For a moment I thought she was trying to hide something, but then she spoke slowly. ‘I think I’ve brought power back from the dark’ – she paused and looked at me – ‘but I’ve always had more power than I’ve shown to you, Tom. I was warned by someone not to use it – to bury it deep inside me and try to forget it was there. Do you know why, Tom?’

I shook my head.

‘Because each time you use such dark power, it changes you. Bit by bit you get closer to the dark, until eventually you are part of it. Then you’ve lost yourself and can never get back to what you once were.’

I understood. This was why the Spook feared so much for us both. I remembered something else Mam had once said to me when I told her how lonely my life as a spook was proving.

How can you be lonely? You’ve got yourself, haven’t you? If you ever lose yourself, then you’ll really be lonely
.

I hadn’t fully understood her words then, but now I did. She meant the integrity, the spark of goodness within you that makes you who you really are. Once that was extinguished, you were lost and truly alone, with only the dark for company.

Once again, I’ve written most of this from memory, just using my notebook when necessary.

Tomorrow we begin our journey back to the County. The first stage is to cross Ireland. But many streams and rivers lie in our path. Will Alice be able to cross them? Only time will tell.

The Spook knows nothing of this, and he seems fitter, stronger and more cheerful than at any time during the past two years. We still have the majority of the money that we earned dealing with the jibbers in Dublin. My master says he is going to use it to start rebuilding his house, beginning with the roof, kitchen and library.

As for Grimalkin, so far we have heard nothing more from her. We can only hope that she managed to elude or slay her pursuers and that the Fiend’s head is still safely in her possession.

In addition to my staff and silver chain, I now have a third weapon – the sword given to me by Cuchulain, the Destiny Blade. I will need its sharp edges to defend myself against the denizens of the dark, who will pursue me in revenge for binding the Fiend.

The time is fast approaching when I will no longer be an apprentice; I will be a spook, and I am determined to be every bit as good as my master. In addition to that, I am my mother’s son, with the special gifts that she has passed down to me. The dark may pursue me, but the time will come when what my mother foretold will come to pass. And as Mam and Grimalkin both prophesied, I
shall
become the hunter, and they will run from
me
. My time is coming, and that day is not very far away.

War will have changed the County for ever, but there’ll still be the dark to fight. I just hope that my family has survived.

Despite all that’s happened, I’m still the Spook’s apprentice and we’re on our way back to Chipenden. We are going home at last.

Joseph Delaney lives in Lancashire. His home is in the middle of boggart territory and his village has a boggart called the Hall Knocker which was laid to rest under the step of a house near the church.