A New Darkness (2 page)

This room was absolutely silent. I had a couple of hours, so I relaxed, closed my eyes, and allowed myself to drift off to sleep.

I would sense the arrival of the ghost and wake up immediately.

Sometime later, I woke exactly as I’d predicted. All spooks are seventh sons of seventh sons, and this means that we possess certain gifts. One was operating here: a cold chill that told me something from the dark was close; it ran powerfully up and down my spine. Before I even opened my eyes, I heard the sound of a girl weeping, and footsteps pacing back and forth beside the bed.

I looked at her. The ghost was that of a young girl, probably no older than seventeen. She had long hair pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head. Like many ghosts, she was very pale, all the color having been left behind with death.

All the colors but one.

The front of her long pale nightdress was soaked in red blood, from neck to hem.

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2

The Girl with the Mousy Hair

I
looked at Miriam’s ghost and sat up in bed to face her. Then I gave her my warmest smile. I tried to be reassuring. “Stand still, Miriam,” I said softly. “Stand still and look at me.”

She turned toward me, gave a sob, and her eyes opened wide in astonishment.

“You can see me! Can you hear me?” she asked. Her voice had a slight echo to it and seemed to come from a distance.

“Yes, I can both see and hear you. I’m a spook, and I’ve come to help you.”

“I’ve been asking for help for days, but nobody listens. Nobody even looks my way.”

“You mean up here in the bedroom?”

“No—I went down to the kitchen where I used to work. Nobody comes up here after dark.”

Ghosts could be seen lingering by their graveside, but usually they haunted the place where they had died. As a seventh son of a seventh son, I might have been able to see or hear her in places where other folk wouldn’t.

“Do you know why that is?” I asked gently.

“It’s because I’m dead,” she said, beginning to cry again.

That was good—an important first step. Some ghosts didn’t know that they were dead. The hardest part of my job was convincing them of that fact before persuading them to move on.

“Yes, you’re dead, Miriam. It happens to us all eventually. But now you can move on to the light. You can go to a better place than this world. I’ll help you to do that, I promise, but first I need to ask you a few questions. Can you tell me how and why you died?”

The girl stopped crying, and an expression of terror came onto her face. “Something evil killed me,” she said.

I tried to keep my face calm, but my mind was whirring with thoughts. I was keen to find out what creature of the dark was responsible for this brutal murder.

“Something sat on my chest. It was heavy and I couldn’t breathe. Then it sank its teeth into my throat and began to drain my blood. I could hear it sucking and snarling. Its eyes were red. It wore a long coat like a man’s, but it was definitely some kind of animal, because its arms were hairy and it had a long tail.”

I listened in astonishment to her description. This was completely outside my experience—I had never even heard of such a creature—but I tried not to reveal anything in my expression. I wanted Miriam to remain calm so that I could get as much information as possible from her.

The doctor had found no wounds on her body, including her throat . . . so could it be that what she was describing was really a nightmare she’d experienced alongside some sort of physical pain?

“It had happened before,” she continued. “I’d felt that weight on my chest and woken up sweating and weak. And when I got out of bed, I felt dizzy. But this was far worse. I could see its red eyes. The creature seemed to be in a frenzy—it kept on drinking my blood until my heart faltered and stopped.”

‘Think carefully, Miriam. I want you to remember all you can about the creature. How big was it?”

“No! No!” She covered her face with her hands. Her whole outline began to shake as she sobbed.

“Try, please, Miriam,” I persisted. “The information you give me might help to save other girls in the future.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m not strong enough. I can’t bear to think about my death again. You said that you were going to help me. So please, please, help me now!”

I’d heard enough. It was time to give her peace from this torment.

“Listen carefully,” I told her, coming slowly to my feet and smiling at her. “I want you to think of the happiest moment you ever experienced.”

She fell silent, and a puzzled expression came onto her face.

“Think hard,” I said. “Was it when you were a child?” Quite often the happiest memories the dead retained were moments in their childhood; a time when they felt safe, protected by their parents; when life hadn’t yet had a chance to hurt them.

“No! No!” she cried out in some agitation. “My childhood was unhappy.”
She gave a shudder but didn’t explain why this was so. Then, suddenly, the sides of her mouth curled up in a smile. “It was when I came here to work. I had a room all to myself, and on the very first morning I saw the sun rise, bathing the hills in its warm glow. The graveyard directly beneath the window had seemed creepy the previous night. But now I saw that it was a peaceful place, well tended, and flowers had been left by relatives who loved those they had lost. And beyond it was that wonderful view, with the valley rising up toward those hills in the distance. I felt lucky to be in such a nice place. I was really happy then.”

“Go back to that moment,” I told her. “Feel that happiness again. The sun is rising, bathing the hills in light. Can you see it?”

“Yes!
Yes!
It’s so bright!”

“Then walk toward it. Go to the light. You can do it. Just a few steps and you’ll be there!”

The ghost was smiling now. She took three paces toward the window and then faded away completely.

My task was over. She’d gone to the light, and that gave me great satisfaction. Often a spook fought the dark and found only fear and violence. It was satisfying to be able to help a lost soul like Miriam. This job had been far easier than most, but today that wasn’t the end of the problem.

The girl had mentioned something heavy sitting on her chest. I would have dismissed it . . . but for one thing. This was the third County girl who’d died in similar circumstances in the same number of months. And each ghost had given the same account of feeling a heavy weight on her chest. But Miriam was the first to have woken up and seen a creature feeding from her.

I was dealing with something very unusual. There was work to be done.

I returned to the house at Chipenden. I’d inherited it from my master, and it was mine to live in as long as I worked as a spook. That suited me fine. As far as I was concerned, this was a job for life.

The following day I got up soon after dawn, picked up my staff, and went out into the garden. There was a tree stump there that my master and I had routinely used for practicing our fighting skills.

Soon I was driving the blade of my staff into the wood again and again until I was breathing hard and dripping with sweat. I was out of condition, a long way off my former peak of fitness.

The staff, with its retractable silver-alloy blade crafted to fight witches, was a spook’s main weapon, and I needed to regain my former skill in using it as soon as possible.

I tried the move in which I flicked my staff from one hand to the other before driving it into the stump. I was clumsy, so I kept at it until I felt I’d improved.

Since my master had died, almost ten months ago now, I’d done my best to deal with the dark, but I hadn’t kept up my fighting skills. Gradually I’d done less and less. I hadn’t had the heart, because it reminded me too much of the days when John Gregory and I had trained together. But now I realized that this must become a daily routine again. I needed to be ready for any eventuality. The death of the third girl had brought home to me the fact that I needed to keep both my wits and my skills sharp and to continue to gather knowledge—there was still much I didn’t know.

Before going back to the house, I also practiced for ten minutes with my silver chain, the spook’s other main weapon, casting it again and again over the post in the garden. I was pleased to discover that my skill with this was undiminished. I didn’t miss once. It had always been one of my strengths—I could cast it over a witch even when she was running directly toward me.

Pleased with myself, I headed back for breakfast. I’d built up a good appetite.

I sat alone at the table with a big portion of ham and eggs steaming on the plate before me. At one time I would have wolfed it all down and helped myself to more. But my appetite was poor these days, and I only picked at my food.

During breakfast, my master and I used to discuss previous events or our plans for the coming day. I missed all that, but of course I wasn’t truly alone.

I could hear a faint purring.

It was the boggart, Kratch.

There were many different types of dark entities like this, and usually it was a spook’s job to deal with them. For example, there were ripper boggarts that drank the blood of animals and people; stone chuckers that threw stones. Both of these could kill, so a spook had to bind or slay them. Other boggarts just played tricks on folk and scared them; they were usually just moved on to a different location—usually a deserted spot far from human habitation. However, Kratch was a cat boggart, and although it was dangerous and could kill, my master had dealt with it in a different way.

This boggart cooked the breakfast and guarded the house and garden. In exchange, after issuing three warnings to any intruders, it was permitted to kill them and drink their blood. My master had made this pact with Kratch, and I had renewed it.

The creature rarely made itself visible, but when it did so, it took the form of a ginger tomcat that varied in size depending on its mood. The purring faded now, and I sensed it moving away from me. Moments later it appeared on the hearth rug, curling up in front of the embers of the fire. I wondered if perhaps it was some type of boggart that had killed the girls. But almost immediately I dismissed that possibility. For one thing, the murderous creature had worn a long coat, and boggarts definitely didn’t wear clothes of any type. Secondly, none of the places where the girls had been killed were on ley lines—the invisible paths along which boggarts moved from location to location.

After finishing what breakfast I could manage, I went down to the village to pick up the week’s provisions, calling in at the shops in the usual order: the butcher’s, the greengrocer’s, and finally the baker’s.

In recent months, the dark had been relatively quiet. Few had visited the withy trees crossroads outside the house to ring the bell that would summon me. However, I had spent much of my time thinking and trying to puzzle out what had killed the girls . . . so far, without success.

As I walked along the street, I received the usual furtive glances, and villagers would occasionally cross to the other side to avoid passing near me. That was to be expected, but today there was something new. I felt that people were whispering behind my back. It made me feel uncomfortable, but I ignored it and went about my business.

Carrying the full sack over my shoulder, I set off up the hill toward the house. As I neared the top of the lane, I saw someone waiting there.

A girl was sitting on the stile next to the gate. For a moment my heart leaped in my chest with a strange combination of anger and grief. It was Alice! Alice had been trained as a witch but had later become my friend and had stayed at the Chipenden house with us. She had been gone for a long time now, but I still missed her. However, almost immediately I realized that this was not Alice after all. Alice was about my own age—seventeen—while this girl was at least a couple of years younger. She had mousy hair, freckles, and a bright, cheerful face. She was wearing a neat dark blue dress that came down well below her knees, and a pair of sensible walking shoes. At first glance you’d have taken her for a healthy farmer’s daughter, but there was something about her eyes that was very unusual.

The left eye was blue and the right eye was brown.

Not only that—their expression was strange in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Whatever it was, I knew instantly that she was no ordinary girl. I had no sensation of cold, so I knew she wasn’t a witch, but there was something about her I didn’t quite trust.

“Hello,” she said as I approached. “Are you Mr. Ward?”

“That I am,” I replied. “Are you here to ask for help? You should have inquired down in the village what to do. You see, it’s best to visit the withy trees crossroads and ring the bell. I’d have gone there right away, and you wouldn’t have had to wait like this.”

“I don’t need help,” she said, jumping down and coming toward me. “You’re a new spook, aren’t you? So you’ll be looking for an apprentice. I’m applying for the job.”

I put down the sack and smiled at her. “I’m sorry, but I’m not looking for an apprentice. Anyway, this is not a job that you can just apply for. You need certain innate abilities, even before you start—special talents that help you fight the dark. I’m new to the job myself. My own apprenticeship was cut short, and I’ll still be learning for at least a few more years. I’m hardly in a position to train anyone else, am I?”