it came light. I imagined my shame at having to tell Mam what had happened.
Eight steps and I was turning the corner so that the cellar was in view. It wasn’t a big cellar but it had dark shadows in the corners that the candlelight couldn’t quite reach, and there were spiders’ webs hanging from the ceiling in frail, mucky curtains. Small pieces of coal and large wooden crates were scattered across the earthen floor and there was an old wooden table next to a big beer barrel. I stepped around the beer barrel and noticed something in the far corner. Something just behind some crates that scared me so much I almost dropped the candle.
It was a dark shape, almost like a bundle of rags, and it was making a noise. A faint, rhythmical sound, like breathing.
I took a step towards the rags; then another, using all my willpower to make my legs move. It was then, as I got so close that I could have touched it, that the thing suddenly grew. From a shadow on the floor it reared up before me until it was three or four times bigger.
I almost ran. It was tall, dark, hooded and terrifying, with green, glittering eyes.
Only then did I notice the staff that it was holding in its left hand.
‘What kept you?’ demanded the Spook. ‘You’re nearly five minutes late!’
Chapter Four. The Letter
‘I lived in this house as a child,’ said the Spook, ‘and I saw things that would make your big toes curl, but I was the only one who could, and my dad used to beat me for telling lies. Something used to climb up out of the cellar. It would have been the same for you. Am I right?’
I nodded.
‘Well, it’s nothing to worry about, lad. It’s just another ghast, a fragment of a troubled soul that’s gone on to better things. Without leaving the bad part of himself behind, he’d have been stuck here for ever.’
‘What did he do?’ I asked, my voice echoing back slightly from the ceiling.
The Spook shook his head sadly. ‘He was a miner whose lungs were so diseased that he couldn’t work any more. He spent his days and nights coughing and struggling for breath and his poor wife kept them both. She worked in a bakery, but sadly for both of them, she was a very pretty woman. There aren’t many women you can trust and the pretty ones are the worst of all.
‘To make it worse he was a jealous man and his illness made him bitter. One evening she was very late home from work and he kept going to the window, pacing backwards and forwards, getting more and more angry because he thought she was with another man.
‘When she finally came in, he was in such a rage that he broke her head open with a big cob of coal. Then he left her there, dying on the flags, and went down into the cellar to dig a grave. She was still alive when he came back but she couldn’t move and couldn’t even cry out. That’s the terror that comes to us, because it’s how she felt as he picked her up and carried her down into the darkness of the cellar. She’d heard him digging. She knew what he was going to do.
‘Later that night he killed himself. It’s a sad story, but although they’re at peace now, his ghast’ s still here and so are her final memories, both strong enough to torment folks like us. We see things that others can’t, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a very useful thing in our trade, though.’
I shuddered. I felt sorry for the poor wife who’d been murdered and I felt sorry for the miner who’d killed her. I even felt sorry for the Spook. Imagine having to spend your childhood in a house like this.
I looked down at the candle, which I’d placed in the middle of the table. It was almost burned down and the flame was starting its last flickering dance, but the Spook didn’t show any sign of wanting to go back upstairs. I didn’t like the shadows on his face. It looked as if it was gradually changing, as if he was growing a snout or something.
‘Do you know how I overcame my fear?’ he asked.
‘No, sir.’
‘One night I was so terrified that I screamed out before I could stop myself. I woke everybody up, and in a rage my father lifted me up by the scruff of my neck and carried me down the steps into this cellar. Then he got a hammer and nailed the door shut behind me.
‘I wasn’t very old. Probably seven at the most. I climbed back up the steps and, screaming fit to burst, scratched and banged at the door. But my father was a hard man and he left me all alone in the dark and I had to stay there for hours, until long after dawn. After a bit, I calmed down and do you know what I did then?’
I shook my head, trying not to look at his face. His eyes were glittering very brightly and he looked more like a wolf than ever.
‘I walked down the steps and sat there in this cellar in the darkness. Then I took three deep breaths and I faced my fear. I faced the darkness itself, which is the most terrifying thing of all, especially for people like us, because things come to us in the dark. They seek us out with whispers and take shapes that only our eyes can see. But I did it, and when I left this cellar the worst was over.’
At that moment the candle guttered and then went out, plunging us into absolute darkness.
‘This is it, lad,’ the Spook said. ‘There’s just you, me and the dark. Can you stand it? Are you fit to be my apprentice?’
His voice sounded different, sort of deeper and strange. I imagined him on all fours, wolf hair covering his face, his teeth growing longer. I was trembling and couldn’t speak until I’d taken my third deep breath. Only then did I give him my answer. It was something my dad always said when he had to do something unpleasant or difficult.
‘Someone has to do it,’ I said. ‘So it might as well be me.’
The Spook must have thought that was funny, because his laughter filled the whole cellar before rumbling up the steps to meet the next peal of thunder, which was on its way down.
‘Nearly thirteen years ago,’ said the Spook, ‘a sealed letter was sent to me. It was short and to the point and it was written in Greek. Your mother sent it. Do you know what it said?’
‘No,’ I said quietly, wondering what was coming next.
‘'I’ve just given birth to a baby boy,' she wrote, 'and he’s the seventh son of a seventh son. His name is Thomas J. Ward and he’s my gift to the County. When he’s old enough we’ll send you word. Train him well. He’ll be the best apprentice you’ve ever had and he’ll also be your last.'
‘We don’t use magic, lad,’ the Spook said, his voice hardly more than a whisper in the darkness. ‘The main tools of our trade are common sense, courage and the keeping of accurate records, so we can learn from the past. Above all, v?e don’t believe in prophecy. We don’t believe that the future is fixed. So if what your mother wrote comes true, then it’s because we make it come true. Do you understand?’
There was an edge of anger in his voice but I knew it wasn’t directed at me, so I just nodded into the darkness.
‘As for being your mother’s gift to the County, every single one of my apprentices was the seventh son of a seventh son. So don’t you start thinking you’re anything special. You’ve a lot of study and hard work ahead of you.
‘Family can be a nuisance,’ the Spook went on after a pause, his voice softer, the anger gone. ‘I’ve only got two brothers left now. One’s a locksmith and we get on all right, but the other one hasn’t spoken to me for well over forty years, though he still lives here in Horshaw.’
By the time we left the house, the storm had blown itself out and the moon was visible. As the Spook closed the front door, I noticed for the first time what had been carved there in the wood.
The Spook nodded towards it. ‘I use signs like this to warn others who’ve the skill to read them or sometimes just to jog my own memory. You’ll recognize the Greek letter gamma. It’s the sign for either a ghost or a ghast. The cross on the lower right is the Roman numeral for ten, which is the lowest grading of all. Anything after six is just a
