round to look up at the stars, thinking that maybe I was going to be buried alive after all. But instead of a shovelful of dirt falling towards me, I saw the outline of Bony Lizzie’s head and shoulders peering down, a silhouette against the stars. She started to chant in a strange sort of throaty whisper, though I couldn’t catch the actual words.
Next she stretched her arms out above the pit and I could see that she was holding something in each hand. Giving a strange cry, she opened her hands and two white things dropped towards me, landing in the mud close to my knees.
By the moonlight I saw clearly what they were. They almost seemed to be glowing. She’d dropped two bones into the pit. They were thumb-bones – I could see the knuckles.
‘Enjoy your last night on this earth, boy,’ she called down to me. ‘But don’t worry, you won’t be lonely because I’ll leave you in good company. Dead Billy will be coming to claim his bones. Just next door, he is, so he’s not got too far to go. He’ll be with you soon and you two have a lot in common. He was Old Gregory’s last apprentice and he won’t take kindly to you having taken his place. Then, just before dawn, we’ll be paying you one last visit. We’ll be coming to collect your bones. They’re special, your bones are, even better than Billy’s, and taken fresh they’ll be the most useful I’ve had for a long time.’
Her face drew back and I heard footsteps walking away.
So that was what was going to happen to me. If Lizzie wanted my bones it meant that she was going to kill me. I remembered the big curved blade that Tusk wore at his belt and I began to tremble.
Before that I had Dead Billy to face. When she’d said, ‘Just next door’, she must have meant the new grave next to the pit. But the Spook had said that Billy Bradley was buried just outside the churchyard at Layton. Lizzie must have dug up his body, cut off his thumbs and buried the rest of him here amongst the trees. Now he’d be coming to get his thumbs back.
Would Billy Bradley want to hurt me? I’d never done him any harm but he’d probably enjoyed being the Spook’s apprentice. Maybe he’d looked forward to finishing his time and becoming a spook himself. Now I’d taken what he once had. Not only that – what about Bony Lizzie’s spell? He might think I was the one who’d cut off his thumbs and thrown them into the pit…
I managed to kneel up and spent the next few minutes desperately trying to untie my hands. It was hopeless. My struggles seemed to be making the rope even tighter.
I felt strange too: light-headed and dry-mouthed. When I looked up at the stars they seemed to be very bright and each star had a twin. If I concentrated hard, I could make the double stars become single again, but as soon as I relaxed, they drifted apart. My throat was burning and my heart pounding three or four times faster than its normal pace.
I kept thinking about what Bony Lizzie had said. Dead Billy would be coming to find his bones. Bones that were lying in the mud less than two paces from where I was kneeling. If my hands had been free, I’d have hurled them from the pit.
Suddenly I saw a slight movement to my left. Had I been standing, it would’ve been just about level with my head. I looked up and watched as a long, plump, white, maggoty head emerged from the side of the pit. It was far, far bigger than any worm I’d ever seen before. Its blind, bloated head moved in a slow circle as it wriggled out the rest of its body. What could this be? Was it poisonous? Could it bite?
And then it came to me. It was a coffin worm! It must be something that had been living in Billy Bradley’s coffin, growing fat and sleek. Something white that had never seen the light of day!
I shuddered as the coffin worm wriggled out of the dark earth and plopped into the mud at my feet. I lost sight of it then as it quickly burrowed beneath the surface.
Being so big, the white worm had dislodged quite a bit of soil from the side of the pit, leaving behind a hole like a narrow tunnel. I watched it, horrified but fascinated, because there was something else moving inside it. Something disturbing the earth, which was cascading from the hole to form a growing mound of soil.
Not knowing what it was made it worse. I had to see what was inside so I struggled to get to my feet. I staggered, feeling light-headed again, the stars starting to spin. I almost fell but I managed to take a step, lurching forward so that I was close to the narrow tunnel, now just about level with my head.
When I looked inside, I wished I hadn’t.
I saw bones. Human bones. Bones that were joined together. Bones that were moving. Two hands without thumbs. One of them without fingers. Bones squelching in the mud, dragging themselves towards me through the soft earth. A grinning skull with gaping teeth.
It was Dead Billy, but instead of eyes, his black sockets stared back at me, cavernous and empty. When a white, fleshless hand emerged into the moonlight and jerked towards my face, I stepped backwards, nearly falling, sobbing with fear.
At that moment, just when I thought I might go out of my mind with terror, the air suddenly became much colder and I sensed something to my right. Someone else had joined me in the pit. Someone who was standing where it was impossible to stand. Half his body was on view; the rest was embedded in the wall of earth.
It was a boy not much older than me. I could only see his left-hand side because the rest of him was somewhere behind, still in the soil. Just as easily as stepping through a door, he swung his right shoulder towards me and the rest of him entered the pit. He smiled at me. A warm, friendly smile.
‘The difference between waking and dreaming,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the hardest lessons to learn. Learn it now, Tom. Learn it now before it’s too late…’
For the first time I noticed his boots. They looked very expensive and had been crafted from best quality leather. They were just like the Spook’s.
He lifted his hands up then, so that they were at each side of his head, palms facing outwards. The thumbs were missing from each hand. His left hand was also without fingers.
It was the ghost of Billy Bradley.
He crossed his hands over his chest and smiled once more. As Billy faded away he seemed happy and at peace.
I understood exactly what he’d told me. No, I wasn’t asleep, but in a way I’d been dreaming. I’d been dreaming the dark dreams that had come out of the bottle that Lizzie had forced into my mouth.
When I turned back to look at the hole, it had gone. There never had been a skeleton crawling towards me. Neither had there been a coffin worm.
The potion must have been some kind of poison: something that made it difficult to tell the difference between waking and dreaming. That was what Lizzie had given me. It had made my heart beat faster and made it impossible for me to sleep. It had kept my eyes wide open, but it had also made them see things that weren’t really there.
Soon afterwards the stars disappeared and it began to rain heavily. It was a long, uncomfortable, cold night and I kept thinking about what would happen to me before dawn. The nearer it got the worse I felt.
About an hour before sunrise the rain eased to a light drizzle before fading away altogether. Once more I could see the stars, and by now they no longer seemed double. I was soaked and cold but my throat had stopped burning.
When a face appeared overhead looking down into the pit, my heart began to race because I thought it was Lizzie come to collect my bones. But to my relief it was Alice.
‘Lizzie’s sent me to see how you’re getting on,’ she called down softly. ‘Has Billy been yet?’
‘He’s been and gone,’ I told her angrily.
‘I never meant for this to happen, Tom. If only you hadn’t meddled, it would have been all right.’
‘Been all right?’ I said. ‘By now another child would be dead and the Spook too, if you’d had your way. And those cakes had the blood of a baby inside. Do you call that being all right? You come from a family of murderers and you’re a murderer yourself!’
‘Ain’t true. It ain’t true, that!’ Alice protested. ‘There was no baby. All I did was give you the cakes.’
‘Even if that were so,’ I insisted, ‘you knew what they were going to do afterwards. And you would’ve let it happen.’
‘I ain’t that strong, Tom. How could I stop it? How could I stop Lizzie?’
‘I’ve chosen what I want to do,’ I told her. ‘But what will you choose, Alice? Bone magic or blood magic? Which one? Which one will it be?’
‘Ain’t going to do either. I don’t want to be like them. I’ll run away. As soon as I get the chance, I’ll be
