How could I tell her the truth? I mean, Ellie had a baby to care for, so how could I tell her that there was a witch somewhere loose in the house with a taste for children’s blood? Then I realized that, for the sake of the baby, I would have to tell her something. She had to know just how bad things were. She had to get away.
‘There is something, Ellie. But I don’t know how to tell you.’
Ellie smiled. ‘The beginning would be as a good a place as any…’
‘Something’s followed me back here,’ I said, looking Ellie straight in the eyes. ‘Something evil that wants to hurt me. That’s why I broke the mirror. Alice was talking to it and-’
Ellie’s eyes suddenly flashed with anger. ‘Tell Jack that, and you certainly would feel his fist! You mean you’ve brought something back here, when I’ve got a new baby to care for? How could you? How could you do that?’
‘I didn’t know it was going to happen,’ I protested. ‘I only found out tonight. That’s why I’m telling you now. You need to leave the house and take the baby to safety. Go now, before it’s too late.’
‘What? Right now? In the middle of the night?’
I nodded.
Ellie shook her head firmly. ‘Jack wouldn’t go. He wouldn’t be driven out of his own house in the middle of the night. Not by anything. No, I’ll wait. I’m going to stay here and I’m going to say my prayers. My mother taught me that. She said that if you pray really hard, nothing from the dark can ever harm you. And I really do believe that. Anyway, you could be wrong, Tom,’ she added. ‘You’re young and only just beginning to learn the job, so it may not be quite as bad as you think. And your mam should be back at any time. If not tonight, then certainly tomorrow night. She’ll know what to do. In the meantime, just keep out of that girl’s room. There’s something not right about her.’
As I opened my mouth to speak, intending to have one more go at persuading her to leave, an expression of alarm suddenly came over Ellie’s face and she stumbled and put her hand against the wall to save herself from falling.
‘Look what you’ve done now. I feel faint just thinking about what’s going on here.’
She sat down on my bed and put her head in her hands for a few moments, while I just stared down at her miserably, not knowing what to do or say.
After a few moments she climbed back to her feet again. ‘We need to talk to your mam as soon as she gets back, but don’t forget, stay away from Alice until then. Do you promise?’
I promised, and with a sad smile Ellie went back to her own room.
It was only when she’d gone that it struck me…
Ellie had stumbled for a second time and said she’d felt light-headed. One stumble could be just chance. Just tiredness. But twice! She was dizzy. Ellie was dizzy and that was the first sign of possession!
I began to pace up and down. Surely I was wrong. Not Ellie! It couldn’t be Ellie. Maybe Ellie was just tired. After all, the baby did keep her awake a lot. But Ellie was strong and healthy. She’d been brought up on a farm herself and wasn’t one to let things drag her down. And all that talk about saying prayers. She could have said that so that I wouldn’t suspect her.
But hadn’t Alice told me that Ellie would be difficult to possess? She’d also said that it would probably be Jack, but he hadn’t shown any sign of dizziness. Still, there was no denying that he had become more and more bad tempered and aggressive too! If Ellie hadn’t held him back he’d have thumped my head off my shoulders.
But of course, if Alice were in league with Mother Malkin,
I realized that it could be any one of them. An attack could occur at any moment and I hadn’t any way of knowing who it would come from!
With luck, Mam would be back before dawn. She’d know what to do. But dawn was a long time off so I couldn’t afford to sleep. I’d have to keep watch all night long. If Jack or Ellie were possessed, there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t go into their room, so all I could do was keep an eye on Alice.
I went outside and sat on the stairs between the door to Ellie and Jack’s room and my own. From there I could see Alice ’s door below. If she left her room, at least I’d be able to give a warning.
I decided that if Mam wasn’t back, I’d leave at dawn; apart from her, there was just one more chance of help…
It was a long night, and at first I jumped at the slightest sound – a creak of the stairs or a faint movement of the floorboards in one of the rooms. But gradually I calmed down. It was an old house and these were the noises I was used to – the noises you expected as it slowly settled and cooled down during the night. However, as dawn approached, I started to feel uneasy again.
I began to hear faint scratching noises from inside the walls. It sounded like fingernails clawing at stone and it wasn’t always in the same place. Sometimes it was further up the stairs on the left; sometimes below, close to Alice ’s room. It was so faint that it was hard to tell whether I was imagining it or not. But I began to feel cold, really cold, and that told me that danger was near.
Next the dogs began to bark, and within a few minutes the other animals were going crazy too, the hairy pigs squealing so loud you’d have thought the pig butcher had already arrived. If that wasn’t enough, the row started the baby crying again.
I was so cold now that my whole body was shaking and trembling. I just had to do something.
On the riverbank, facing the witch, my hands had known what to do. This time it was my legs that acted faster than I could think. I stood up and ran. Terrified, my heart hammering, I bounded down the stairs, adding to the noise. I just had to get outside and away from the witch. Nothing else mattered. All my courage had gone.
Chapter Thirteen. Hairy Pigs
I ran out of the house and headed north, straight for Hangman’s Hill, still in a panic, only slowing down when I’d reached the north pasture. I needed help and I needed it fast. I was going back to Chipenden. Only the Spook could help me now.
Once I’d reached the boundary fence, the animals suddenly fell silent and I turned and looked back towards the farm. Beyond it, I could just see the dirt road winding away in the distance, like a dark stain on the patchwork of grey fields.
It was then that I saw a light on the road. There was a cart moving towards the farm. Was it Mam? For a few moments my hopes were high. But as the cart neared the farm gate, I heard a loud hawking cough, the noise of phlegm being gathered in the throat and then somebody spat. It was just Snout, the pig butcher. He’d five of our biggest hairy pigs to deal with; once dead, each one took a lot of scraping so he was making an early start.
He’d never done me any harm but I was always glad when he’d finished his business and left. Mam had never liked him either. She disliked the way he kept hawking up thick phlegm and spitting it out into the yard.
He was a big man, taller even than Jack, with knotted muscles on his forearms. The muscles were necessary for the work he did. Some pigs weighed more than a man and they fought like mad to avoid the knife. However, there was one part of Snout that had gone to seed. His shirts were always short, with the bottom two buttons open, and his fat, white, hairy belly hung down over the brown leather apron he wore to stop his trousers getting soaked with blood. He couldn’t have been much more than thirty, but his hair was thin and lank.
Disappointed that it wasn’t Mam, I watched him unhook the lantern from the cart and begin to unload his tools. He set up for business at the front of the barn, right next to the pigpen.
I’d wasted enough time and started to climb over the fence into the wood when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a movement on the slope below. A shadow was heading my way, hurrying towards the stile at the far end of the north pasture.
It was Alice. I didn’t want her following me but it was better to deal with her now than later, so I sat on the boundary fence and waited for her to reach me. I didn’t have to wait long because she ran all the way up the hill.
She didn’t come that close but stayed about nine or ten paces away, her hands on her hips, trying to catch her breath. I looked her up and down, seeing again the black dress and the pointy shoes. I must have woken her up
