he read. It was printed in a purple ink, and was the first item on a list.
Those that men call Werewolves or Lycanthropes call themselves the Hounds of God, as they claim their transformation is a gift from their creator, and they repay the gift with their tenacity, for they will pursue an evildoer to the very gates of Hell.
Bod nodded.
Not just evildoers, he thought.
He read the rest of the list, committing it to memory as best he could, then went down to the chapel, where Miss Lupescu was waiting for him with a small meat pie and a huge bag of chips she had bought from the fish- and-chips shop at the bottom of the hill, and another pile of purple-inked duplicated lists.
The two of them shared the chips, and once or twice, Miss Lupescu even smiled.
Silas came back at the the end of the month. He carried his black bag in his left hand and he held his right arm stiffly. But he was Silas, and Bod was happy to see him, and even happier when Silas gave him a present, a little model of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
It was almost midnight, and it was still not fully dark. The three of them sat at the top of the hill, with the lights of the city glimmering beneath them.
“I trust that all went well in my absence,” said Silas.
“I learned a lot,” said Bod, still holding his Bridge. He pointed up into the night sky. “That’s Orion the Hunter, up there, with his belt of three stars. That’s Taurus the Bull.”
“Very good,” said Silas.
“And you?” asked Bod. “Did you learn anything, while you were away?”
“Oh yes,” said Silas, but he declined to elaborate.
“I also,” said Miss Lupescu, primly. “I also learned things.”
“Good,” said Silas. An owl hooted in the branches of an oak tree. “You know, I heard rumors, while I was away,” said Silas, “that some weeks ago you both went somewhat further afield than I would have been able to follow. Normally, I would advise caution, but, unlike some, the ghoul-folk have short memories.”
Bod said, “It’s okay. Miss Lupescu looked after me. I was never in any danger.”
Miss Lupescu looked at Bod, and her eyes shone, then she looked at Silas.
“There are so many things to know,” she said. “Perhaps I come back next year, in high summer also, to teach the boy again.”
Silas looked at Miss Lupescu, and he raised an eyebrow a fraction. Then he looked at Bod.
“I’d like that,” said Bod.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Witch’s Headstone
THERE WAS A WITCH buried at the edge of the graveyard, it was common knowledge. Bod had been told to keep away from that corner of the world by Mrs. Owens as far back as he could remember.
“Why?” he asked.
“T’aint healthy for a living body,” said Mrs. Owens. “There’s damp down that end of things. It’s practically a marsh. You’ll catch your death.”
Mr. Owens himself was more evasive and less imaginative. “It’s not a good place,” was all he said.
The graveyard proper ended at the bottom of the west side of the hill, beneath the old apple tree, with a fence of rust-brown iron railings, each topped with a small, rusting spearhead, but there was a wasteland beyond that, a mass of nettles and weeds, of brambles and autumnal rubbish, and Bod, who was, on the whole, obedient, did not push between the railings, but he went down there and looked through. He knew he wasn’t being told the whole story, and it irritated him.
Bod went back up the hill, to the little chapel near the entrance to the graveyard, and he waited until it got dark. As twilight edged from grey to purple there was a noise in the spire, like a fluttering of heavy velvet, and Silas left his resting place in the belfry and clambered headfirst down the spire.
“What’s in the far corner of the graveyard?” asked Bod. “Past Harrison Westwood, Baker of this Parish, and his wives, Marion and Joan?”
“Why do you ask?” said his guardian, brushing the dust from his black suit with ivory fingers.
Bod shrugged. “Just wondered.”
“It’s unconsecrated ground,” said Silas. “Do you know what that means?”
“Not really,” said Bod.
Silas walked across the path without disturbing a fallen leaf, and sat down on the bench beside Bod. “There are those,” he said, in his silken voice, “who believe that all land is sacred. That it is sacred before we come to it, and sacred after. But here, in your land, they blessed the churches and the ground they set aside to bury people in, to make it holy. But they left land unconsecrated beside the sacred ground, Potter’s Fields to bury the criminals and the suicides or those who were not of the faith.”
“So the people buried in the ground on the other side of the fence are bad people?”
Silas raised one perfect eyebrow. “Mm? Oh, not at all. Let’s see, it’s been a while since I’ve been down that way. But I don’t remember anyone particularly evil. Remember, in days gone by you could be hanged for stealing a shilling. And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence.”
“They kill themselves, you mean?” said Bod. He was about eight years old, wide-eyed and inquisitive, and he was not stupid.
“Indeed.”
“Does it work? Are they happier dead?”
“Sometimes. Mostly, no. It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”
“Sort of,” said Bod.
Silas reached down and ruffled the boy’s hair.
Bod said, “What about the witch?”
“Yes. Exactly,” said Silas. “Suicides, criminals, and witches. Those who died unshriven.” He stood up, a midnight shadow in the twilight. “All this talking,” he said, “and I have not even had my breakfast. While you will be late for lessons.” In the twilight of the graveyard there was a silent implosion, a flutter of velvet darkness, and Silas was gone.
The moon had begun to rise by the time Bod reached Mr. Pennyworth’s mausoleum, and Thomes Pennyworth (here he lyes in the certainty of the moft glorious refurrection) was already waiting, and was not in the best of moods.
“You are late,” he said.
“Sorry, Mr. Pennyworth.”
Pennyworth tutted. The previous week Mr. Pennyworth had been teaching Bod about Elements and Humors, and Bod had kept forgetting which was which. He was expecting a test, but instead Mr. Pennyworth said, “I think it is time to spend a few days on practical matters. Time is passing, after all.”
“Is it?” asked Bod.
“I am afraid so, young Master Owens. Now, how is your Fading?”
