The Spook's Blood (Wardstone Chronicles) Read Free Page A

sun went down and the copse grew darker. It was a clear moonless night – the moon wouldn’t rise for several hours – but the sky was sprinkled with stars. Keeping to the shelter of hedgerows, we began a meandering journey south towards the tower, finally skirting the eastern edge of Witch Dell. We could see the devastation caused by the fire – a wide swath of burned trees cut it in half. It must have destroyed a lot of dead witches, many of them with allegiance to the Fiend. I realized that his supporters would do anything to retrieve his head.
    We stopped about fifty yards from the dell’s southern tip. There were signs of the terrible battle between Grimalkin and her witch opponents. She was formidable, but I wondered at the size of the forces that were hunting her down – and about Alice’s part in all this.
    Alice cupped her hands around her mouth and sent an eerie call out into the darkness. The corpsefowl – or nightjar – flies by night, and the cry sent shivers down my spine. The powerful water witch, Morwena, had used a corpsefowl as her familiar, and I had some scary memories of being hunted by her. I remembered the time she had surged up out of the marsh, hooked me with a talon and tried to drag me down to drain my blood.
    I couldn’t tell the difference between Alice’s cry and the real thing, but she told me she modulated it slightly so that Agnes would know it was her and not just a bird.
    Every five minutes, Alice repeated that cry. Each time, that eldritch call, echoing amongst the trees of the dell, made me shudder. Each time it went out into the darkness, my heart beat harder: the bad memories came flooding back. Claw had bitten off the witch’s finger and saved me. Otherwise I’d have been dragged down into the marsh, my blood drained before I’d even had time to drown. I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind and tried to stay calm, slowing my breathing as my master had taught me.
    Alice was about to give up when, after the eighth attempt, I suddenly felt cold. It was the warning that something from the dark was approaching. Everything became unnaturally still and silent. Then there was a rustle of grass, followed by low squelching noises. Something was approaching across the soggy ground. Soon I could hear snuffling and grunting.
    Within moments, we spotted a dead witch crawling towards us. It could have been any dead witch out hunting for blood, thinking we were likely prey, so I tightened my grip on my staff.
    Alice quickly sniffed twice, checking for danger. ‘It’s Agnes,’ she whispered.
    I could hear the witch sniffing the ground, finding her way towards us. Then I saw her: she was a sorry creature indeed, and the sight brought a lump to my throat. She had always been such a clean, houseproud woman; now she wore a tatty dress that was caked in dirt and her hair was greasy and wriggling with maggots. She smelled very strongly of leaf mould. I needn’t have been concerned that she might have forgotten us: as soon as she came close she began to sob, the tears running down her cheeks to drip onto the grass. Then she sat up and put her head in her hands.
    ‘Sorry to be so maudlin, Alice,’ she cried, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘I thought it was bad when my husband died – I missed him terribly for many a long year – but this is far worse. I just can’t get used to being like this. I wish the fire had taken me. I can never go back to my cottage and live my old comfortable life. I’ll never be happy again. If only I’d been a strong dead witch. At least then I’d have been able to travel by night and hunt far from this miserable dell. But I’m not strong enough to catch anything big. Beetles, voles and mice are the best I can hope for!’
    Alice didn’t speak for quite a while. I couldn’t think of anything to say, either. What comfort could I give to poor Agnes? No wonder most living witches kept away from their dead relatives. It was painful