Part 11 (2/2)

'So he's not that much better yet?'

'He's improving slowly' Meg answered. 'But it'll take time. These things can't be rushed. Try not to disturb or burden him too much. He needs to rest and sleep as much as he can.'

She brought across a steaming cup of hot chicken soup, so I thanked her and sipped it slowly, feeling it begin to warm my insides.

'How's your poorly dad?' she asked suddenly, as she settled herself down in her rocking chair. 'Is he getting better now?'

I was surprised that she'd remembered that, and her question brought tears to my eyes again. 'He died, Meg,' I told her. 'But he'd been very ill.'

'That's sad, Tom. I'm so sorry. I know what it's like to lose family . ..'

I felt the pain of losing Dad wrench my stomach and thought of what Morgan had done to his spirit. Dad didn't deserve that. I couldn't let it happen again. I had to do something.

Meg fell silent and stared into the flames. After a while she closed her eyes and started humming a tune very quietly under her breath. When I'd finished the soup, I went across and put the cup on the table.

'Thanks, Meg. That was really good,' I told her.

She didn't reply and seemed to be asleep. It was something she often did, falling asleep in her rocking chair near the hearth.

I didn't know what to do now. I'd hoped to speak to my master about Morgan, but he was clearly not well enough to be bothered with it. I didn't want to trouble him and make him worse. Perhaps while he was sleeping I could just take a look at this grimoire; check it was where Morgan had said. Maybe something in there would help me to decide what to do. One thing was clear: with my master so ill and Alice gone, I was on my own, and it was down to me to do the right thing by my dad. He was all that mattered, and I had to do something to stop him suffering at the hands of Morgan. I would start by looking for the grimoire.

The Spook was upstairs sleeping and I might not get a better chance to look for it. One part of me felt bad about even thinking of taking it without telling the Spook. But there would be a time for explanations later. Dad was all that mattered now. I couldn't bear the thought of him being tortured by Morgan again.

But when I started to leave the kitchen, Meg suddenly opened her eyes and leaned forward to poke the fire. 'I'm just going up to see Mr Gregory' I told her.

'No, Tom, we don't want to disturb him yet' she said. 'You just sit by the fire and warm yourself after that long walk you've had in the cold.'

'Well, I'll just go and get my notebook from the study first' I said.

But I went into the parlour rather than the study. If the Spook was still in bed, Meg hadn't had her herb tea yet. I needed her to sleep for a while so that I could hunt for the grimoire, and herb tea was the easiest way to do it. So I took down the big brown gla.s.s jar from the cupboard and poured three quarters of an inch of the mixture into a cup. Then I went into the kitchen and began to heat the water.

'What's this?' Meg asked with a smile, as I held the cup towards her.

'It's herb tea, Meg. Drink it down. It'll stop the cold getting into your bones.'

The only warning I got was when the smile slipped from her face. Meg dashed the cup from my hand and it smashed to pieces on the kitchen flags. Then she got to her feet, gripped my wrist and dragged me close. I tried to pull away but she was too strong. I felt that she could snap my arm without trying too hard.

'Liar! Liar!' she shouted, her face only inches from my own. 'I'd hoped for better from you, but you're no better than John Gregory! Don't say I didn't give you a chance. You've proved yourself to be just the same. You'd take away my memory too, wouldn't you, boy? But now I remember everything. I know what I was and I know what I am!'

With our faces almost touching, Meg sniffed at me very loudly. T know what you are too' she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper now. T know what you're thinking. I know your darkest secret thoughts, the ones you couldn't even tell your own mother.'

Her eyes were staring hard into mine. They weren't points of fire like Mother Malkin's had been when we'd come face to face in the spring, but they seemed to be growing larger. She was a lamia witch and her body was stronger than mine, and now her mind was beginning to control me too.

'I know what you could be one day, Tom Ward,' she whispered, 'but that day's still a long way off. You're just a boy, while I've walked this earth more years than I care to remember. So don't try any of John Gregory's tricks on me, because I know them all. Every last one!'

She spun me round so that I was facing away from her and let go of my arm, quickly transferring her grip to my neck.

'Please, Meg! I didn't mean any harm,' I pleaded. T wanted to help you. I'd talked to Alice about it. She wanted to help you too ...'

'It's easy to say that now. Was giving me that filthy mixture to drink the way to help me? No, I don't think so. No more of your lies or it'll be the worse for you!'

'But they're not lies, Meg. Remember - Alice comes from a family of witches. She understood you and really felt sorry for what was happening. I was going to speak to Mr Gregory about you and-'

'Right, boy! I've heard enough excuses!' snapped Meg. 'It's down to the cellar with you. Let's see how you like it down there in the dark. It's just what you deserve. I want you to know what I went through. I didn't sleep the whole time, you see. I kept waking up to spend long hours thinking, alone in the dark. Too weak to move, too weak to climb to my feet - trying desperately to remember all that you and John Gregory would like me to forget - I could still think and feel, knowing that it would be long, tedious, lonely months before anybody came to the door to let me out.. .'

At first I struggled, trying my best to resist, but it was useless: she was just too strong. Still gripping me by the neck, she marched me down the cellar steps, my feet hardly touching the floor, until we reached the iron gate. She had the key, and we were soon beyond it and descending deeper underground.

She hadn't bothered with a candle, and although I can find my way in the dark a lot better than most people, at each corner it grew darker and more difficult to see. The thought of the cellar below terrified me. I remembered her sister, the feral lamia witch, still imprisoned in the pit; I didn't want to be anywhere near her. But to my relief, when we turned the third corner, she brought me to a halt by the three doors.

With another key she opened the left-hand door, thrust me inside and locked it behind me. Then I heard her unlock the cell next to mine and go inside. She didn't stay very long. Soon that door slammed shut and she began to climb the steps. After a few moments there was the sound of the iron gate clanging shut; more steps, growing fainter and fainter; and then silence.

I waited a few moments in case she came back for some reason, then fumbled in my pockets for the stub of candle and my tinderbox. Seconds later the candle was alight and I looked around at my cell. It was small, no more than eight paces by four, with a heap of straw in the corner to serve for a bed. The walls were built from blocks of stone and the door was constructed of st.u.r.dy oak, with a square inspection hole near the top sealed with four vertical iron bars.

I sat down on the stone floor in the corner to think things through. What had happened while I'd been away? I felt certain that the Spook was now in the cell next to mine, the one where Meg spent her summers. Why else would Meg have gone in there? But how had the Spook ended up in Meg's power? He still hadn't been well when I'd left for home. Maybe he'd forgotten to give Meg her herb tea and she'd recovered her memory? Perhaps she'd put something in his food or drink - the same thing he'd been using all those years to keep her docile, most likely.

Not only that - there'd been Alice's influence. She'd kept chatting to Meg, talking to her about coming from a family of witches. Sometimes they'd whispered together. What had they been discussing? If Alice had had her way, Meg's dose of herb tea would have been reduced. Well, I didn't blame Alice for what had happened, but her presence in the Spook's house certainly wouldn't have helped the situation.

When I'd returned, Meg had only been pretending to be confused and had been playing a game with me.

Had she really been giving me what she'd called 'a chance'? If I hadn't tried to give her the herb tea, would she have treated me any differently? And then it hit me. When I got back to Anglezarke, I'd been so wrapped up in my thoughts of Morgan and Dad, I'd been completely blind to the evidence - signs I could see only too clearly now. Meg had called me 'Tom', not 'Billy', for the first time ever. And she'd remembered about my dad. Why hadn't I picked up on that at the time? I should have been on my guard. I'd let my heart rule my head, and now the whole County was in danger. A lamia witch free to roam once more, and neither a spook nor an apprentice to stop her. What was done was done, but somehow I had to put it right.

There was good news and bad news, but most of it was bad. Meg had sniffed me out using her powers as a witch. She knew a lot about me but she hadn't bothered to search me or she'd have found the tinder-box and candle. She'd have found the key too - the key that could open most doors as long as they weren't too complex. So that was the good news. I could get out of my cell. I could open the door to the Spook's cell too.

The bad news was that the key wouldn't be good enough to get me through the gate. Otherwise the Spook wouldn't have kept a special one on top of the bookcase in the library. And Meg had that key now. Even if I could get us both out of our cells, we were still trapped in the cellar. So what I needed to do now was clear enough. I had to talk to the Spook. My master would know what to do for the best.

So I used the key to open the door of my cell. It didn't make much noise, but the cell door seemed to stick and, despite my best efforts, jerked open, making a noise that echoed up and down the steps. I hoped Meg would be upstairs by the kitchen fire and wouldn't have heard. Taking the candle, I tiptoed out into the corridor and held it up to the bars of the Spook's cell. I peered inside but couldn't see much. There was a bed in the corner and a dark bundle on top of it. Was it the Spook?

'Mr Gregory! Mr Gregory!' I called through the bars, the cellar. So, if she'd a mind to escape, maybe even the iron trellis gate wouldn't be enough to stop her for long! As for the bars of my cell, they didn't bear thinking about. My only hope was that the witch was still relatively weak after being in the pit for so long.

I kept perfectly still and listened, doing my best to breathe quietly. I could hear her approaching, scuttling and halting, scuttling nearer and nearer. I pressed myself back into the corner and stopped breathing altogether.

Something touched the door lightly. The next contact with the wood was stronger and there was a scratching sound, as if sharp claws were biting in, trying to get a purchase. It was as if something was clawing its way up the door. I'd run into my own cell without thinking and now I wished I'd locked myself in the other cell with the Spook. I might have been able to wake him up and ask him what to do.

It was dark. Very dark. So dark that, inside my cell, I couldn't tell where the door ended and the walls on either side began. But the oblong, dissected by the four vertical bars, was slightly paler than its surroundings, so there had to be some light on the stairs, shedding a faint illumination of the wall beyond my cell.

A shape moved across the oblong. It was in silhouette but I could see enough to tell that it was something like a hand. I heard it grip the bars. But it wasn't as if flesh and muscle came into contact with them. There was a rasp, almost as if a file had sc.r.a.ped against iron, followed by an explosive hiss of anger and pain. The lamia witch had touched iron and the hurt she was suffering would be severe. Only her will was holding her there. Next, something big moved up in front of the bars, like the disc of a dark moon eclipsing the pale light beyond. It had to be the witch's head. She was peering at me through the bars but it was too dark to see her eyes!

There was another rasp and the door groaned and creaked. I trembled with fear. I knew what was happening. She was trying to bend the bars or pull them right out of the wooden door.

If I'd had my staff of rowan wood I could have jabbed at the witch through the bars and perhaps driven her off. But I had nothing. My silver chain was in my bag, but it was no use to me there. I'd nothing here that I could use to defend myself.

The door groaned and creaked as the pressure on it grew, and I heard it start to buckle. The witch hissed again and made a snuffling, croaking sound. She was eager to get inside, desperate to drink my blood.

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