'And that's not all, lad. You see, a normal witch pit isn't good enough for her. There are iron bars on the sides and bottom of the pit too, buried under the soil. So she's really in a cage. That and a layer of salt and iron beyond that. She can dig fast and deep with those four clawed hands as well, so it's the only way we can stop her getting out! Anyway, do you know who she is?'
It was a strange sort of question. I looked down and read her name from the stone.
The Spook must have seen the expression on my face as the penny dropped because he smiled grimly. 'Aye, lad. That's Meg's sister ...'
'Does Meg know she's down here?' I asked.
'She did once, lad, but now she can't remember; so it's best to keep it that way. Now come over here - I've got something else to show you.'
He led the way between the stones to the far corner, which seemed to be the driest place in the cellar; the ceiling above seemed mostly clear of cobwebs. It was an open pit, ready for use, and the cover lay next to it on the ground, waiting to be dragged into position.
I saw then, for the first time, how the cover for a witch pit was made. The outer stones were cemented together in a square and long bolts went through them from end to end to make sure they stayed in place. The thirteen steel bars were also really long bolts too, which were tightened by nuts recessed into the stones. It was all quite clever, and a stonemason and a smith, working together, would have needed a lot of skill to make it.
Suddenly my mouth dropped open and stayed that way just long enough for the Spook to notice. This time there was no sign, but a name had already been carved on the nearest cornerstone:
'Which do you think's the better way, lad?' the Spook asked. 'Herb tea or this? Because it's got to be one or the other.'
'Herb tea,' I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
'Right, so now you know why you can't afford to forget to give it to her each morning. If you forget, she'll remember, and I don't want to have to bring her down here.'
I had a question I wanted to ask then, but I didn't because I knew the Spook wouldn't like it. I wanted to know why what was good enough for one witch wasn't good enough for them all. Still, I knew I couldn't complain that much: I would never forget how close to the dark Alice had once got. So close that the Spook had thought it best to put her in a pit. He'd only relented because I'd reminded him of how he'd let Meg off.
That night I found it difficult to get to sleep. My head whirled with what I'd seen and the realization of where I was living. I've seen some scary things, but living in a house with witch graves, bound boggarts and live witches in the cellar didn't make me rest easy. In the end I decided to tiptoe downstairs. I'd left my notebooks in the kitchen and I wanted my Latin one: I knew that half an hour staring at boring lists of nouns and verbs would be sure to send me off to sleep.
Even before I reached the foot of the stairs, I heard noises that I didn't expect. Someone was crying softly in the kitchen and I could hear the Spook talking in a low voice. When I reached the kitchen door, I didn't go in; it was slightly open and I saw something through the crack that halted me in my tracks.
Meg was sitting in her rocking chair close to the fire. She had her head in her hands and her shoulders were heaving with sobs. The Spook was leaning over her, speaking softly and stroking her hair. His face, lit by candlelight, was half turned towards me and wore an expression on it that I'd never seen before. It was similar to the way my brother Jack's big, craggy face sometimes softens when he looks at his wife, Ellie.
Then, as I watched, to my astonishment, a tear leaked from my master's left eye and ran all the way down his cheek to reach his mouth.
I knew not to pry any longer so I went back up to bed.
A Nasty Piece of Work
The days soon began to settle into a steady routine. In the mornings my chores were to light the downstairs fires and bring fresh water from the stream. Every second day I had to light all the fires in the house to keep the place from getting too damp. As I made the bedroom fires, my instructions were to open each window for about ten minutes to air the room. I had to clean out all the grates first, and I went up and down stairs so much that I was glad when it was over. The one in the attic was the worst, of course, and I always used to do that first, before my legs got too tired.
The attic was a really big room, the biggest in the house, with a lot of floor space. It only had one window and that was a huge skylight in the roof. The room was empty except for a large mahogany writing desk, which was locked.-On the brass plate around its keyhole was an embossed pentacle, a five-pointed star within three concentric circles. I knew that pentacles were used to protect magicians when they summoned daemons and I wondered why the plate had that design.
The desk looked very expensive, and I also wondered what was in it and why the Spook didn't bring it down to his study, which would have been a much more suitable and useful place. I never did get round to asking him about that desk. And when we finally talked about it, it was already too late.
After airing the attic, I would work my way down, a floor at a time. The three bedrooms directly below the attic weren't furnished. There were two at the front of the house and one at the back. The back room was the worst and darkest room in the whole house because it only had one window, which faced back towards the cliff. As I raised the sash and peered out, the damp rock was so close that I could almost reach out and touch it. There was a ledge on the cliff with a path running upwards. It seemed to me that it might be possible to climb out of the window and up onto the ledge. Not that I was daft enough to try it! One slip and I'd dash my brains out on the flags below.
After lighting the fires, I gave Meg her herb tea, then practised my Latin verbs until breakfast, which was a lot later in the morning than it had been at Chipenden. Following that, it was lessons for most of the day, but late in the afternoon I usually went for a short walk with the Spook, no more than twenty minutes downhill to the foot of the clough, where it opened out onto the lower slopes of the moor. Despite the hard work seeing to the fires, I'd got a lot more exercise back in Chipenden and was starting to feel restless. Each morning the air seemed colder and the Spook told me that the first of the snow would be with us soon.
One morning my master went off to Adlington to see his brother Andrew, the locksmith. When I asked if I could go with him, he refused.
'Nay, lad, somebody needs to keep a careful eye on Meg. Besides, I've got things to talk to Andrew about. Family things that are private. And I need to bring him up to date on what's been happening ...'
By that I guessed the Spook was going to tell his brother the full story of what had happened to us in Priestown, when my master had almost been burned to death by the Quisitor. Once we were back in Chipenden, the Spook had sent a letter to Adlington, telling his brother that he was safe, but now he probably wanted to fill in the details.
I was really disappointed to be left behind - I was desperate to find out how Alice was getting on - but I had no choice, and despite the herb tea Meg really did need watching carefully. The Spook was particularly concerned that she might leave the house and wander off so I had to make sure that both front and back doors were kept locked. As it happened, what she did was completely unexpected ...