The Seventh Apprentice Read Free

about my own age—maybe fifteen at the most.
    He saw me approaching and let go of the rope. The bell danced and swung from the branch, still ringing for a couple of seconds before lapsing into silence. Then there was only the chill wind whistling through the bare branches and two boys standing face-to-face and staring at each other.
    “I need to see Mr. Gregory,” the stranger said.
    He was fair-haired and rosy-cheeked, with so many freckles on his brow and chin that he looked like he had a bad case of measles. He was slightly taller than me, and a lot broader. Then I noticed his stomach—it hung over his belt. Well, at first glance I thought it was a belt. It was actually just a piece of dirty string looped twice around his waist to hold up his breeches, which were covered in dark stains. Instead of a coat, he had a piece of sacking draped over his shoulders, and that was stained too. An unpleasant smell came from him, a mixture of sweat and something else that I recognized but couldn’t place.
    “Mr. Gregory’s away on business,” I told him. “I’m his apprentice, Will Johnson. What’s your name?”
    “I’m Peter Snout,” he said. “My dad’s the pig butcher.”
    I sniffed again. That was the familiar smell. In addition to the smell of sweat, there was a ripe blend of blood and pig muck.
    The pig butcher traveled the length of the County, slaughtering pigs for farmers. The lead up to Christmas was his busiest time of year. Killing pigs could be a messy business, and most people preferred to bring in an expert. He cleaned them up afterward, collecting the blood in buckets and scraping the bristles off the carcasses. He got the job done with the minimum of fuss.
    One sniff was enough to tell anyone that Peter had been helping his dad with the work.
    “Tell me what your problem is and I’ll tell Mr. Gregory the moment he gets back.”
    “When will your master be back?” Peter demanded.
    “It could be three or four days, maybe longer.”
    “That’s too long!” the boy exclaimed. “My dad needs help now !” He turned bright red in the face, puffing and blowing as he paced about, clenching and unclenching his fists in frustration.
    “Why don’t you just calm down and tell me what the problem is? It might help to get it off your chest,” I suggested. I was doing my best to reassure him, but in truth, my head was spinning. The boy was obviously in desperate need of aid.
    “What can you do?” He halted in front of me. “We need a real spook for what’s got to be done. Something terrible has happened. . . . It’s some sort of pig witch!” he cried, his face twisting in anguish. “She’s got my dad and she’s doing horrible things to him! She’s cutting him with her knives. . . .”
    “Look, Peter, you need to tell me everything that’s happened from the beginning to the end. Don’t leave anything out!”
    That was what the Spook always said to people who had a problem with the dark. If they were made to relate the tale slowly and carefully, remembering all the details, they tended to calm down. And they were also supplying useful information. Besides, I was in no hurry. Nothing could be done until the Spook got back.
    But instead of telling me what the problem was, Peter asked, “Isn’t there another spook who could help?”
    I shook my head. “The only one I know of is Brian Houghton, one of my master’s former apprentices. But he’s practicing his trade somewhere south of the County—I don’t know where. Look, why don’t you tell me what happened?” I replied.
    Eventually Peter calmed down and managed to blurt out his tale. It was both terrible and incredible.
    Although I’d only just begun my study of them, I knew that there were many different types of witch—Pendle witches, water witches, Celtic witches, and lamia witches, to mention just a few—but never had my master mentioned pig witches. I found some of what Peter told me hard to believe.
    “Me  and my dad have been