‘No,’ Mam said slowly, weighing her words carefully. ‘She’s not a witch, but she will be one day. She was born with the heart of a witch and she’s little choice but to follow that path.’
‘Then she should go into the pit at Chipenden,’ I said sadly, hanging my head.
‘Remember your lessons,’ Mam said sternly. ‘Remember what your master taught you. There’s more than one kind of witch.’
‘The "benign",’ I said. ‘You mean Alice might turn out to be a good witch who helps others?’
‘She might. And she might not. Do you know what I really think? You might not want to hear this.’
‘I do,’ I said.
‘ Alice might end up neither good nor bad. She might end up somewhere in between. That would make her very dangerous to know. That girl could be the bane of your life, a blight, a poison on everything you do. Or she might turn out to be the best and strongest friend you’ll ever have. Someone who’ll make all the difference in the world. I just don’t know which way it will go. I can’t see it, no matter how hard I try.’
‘How could you see it anyway, Mam?’ I asked. ‘Mr Gregory said he doesn’t believe in prophecy. He said the future’s not fixed.’
Mam put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a little squeeze of reassurance. ‘There’s some choice open to us all,’ she said. ‘But maybe one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make will be about Alice. Go to bed now, and get a good night’s sleep if you can. Make up your mind tomorrow when the sun’s shining.’
One thing I didn’t ask Mam was how she’d managed to silence the ghasts on Hangman’s Hill. It was my instincts again. I just knew that it was something she wouldn’t want to talk about. In a family, there are some things you don’t ask. You know you’ll be told when it’s the right time.
We left soon after dawn, my heart down in my boots.
Ellie followed me to the gate. I stopped there but waved Alice on and she sauntered up the hill, swinging her hips, without even once glancing back.
‘I need to say something to you, Tom,’ Ellie said. ‘It hurts me to do it but it has to be said.’
I could tell by her voice that it was going to be bad. I nodded miserably and forced myself to meet her eyes. I was shocked to see that they were streaming with tears.
‘You’re still welcome here, Tom,’ Ellie said, brushing her hair back from her forehead and trying to smile.
‘That’s not changed. But we do have to think of our child. So you’ll be welcome here, but not after dark. You see, that’s what’s made Jack so bad tempered recently. I didn’t like to tell you just how strongly he feels, but it has to be said now. He doesn’t like the job you’re doing at all. Not one little bit. It gives him the creeps. And he’s scared for the baby.
‘We’re frightened, you see. We’re frightened that if you’re ever here after dark you might attract something else. You might bring back something bad with you and we can’t risk anything happening to our family. Come and visit us during the day, Tom. Come and see us when the sun’s up and the birds are singing.’
Ellie hugged me then and that made it even worse. I knew that something had come between us and that things had changed for ever. I felt like crying, but somehow I stopped myself. I don’t know how I managed it. There was a big lump in my throat and I couldn’t speak.
I watched Ellie walk back to the farmhouse and turned my attention back to the decision I had to make.
What should I do about Alice?
I’d woken up certain that it was my duty to take her back with me to Chipenden. It seemed the right thing to do. The safe thing to do. It felt like a duty. When I gave Mother Malkin the cakes, I’d let the softness of my heart overrule me. And look where that had got me. So it was probably best to deal with Alice now, before it was too late. As the Spook said, you had to think of the innocents who might be harmed in the future.
On the first day of the journey we didn’t speak to each other much. I just told her we were going back to Chipenden to see the Spook. If Alice knew what was going to happen to her, she certainly didn’t complain. Then on the second day, as we got closer to the village and were actually on the lower slopes of the fells, no more than a mile or so from the Spook’s house, I told Alice what I’d been keeping bottled up inside me; what had been worrying me ever since I’d realized just what the cakes contained.
We were sitting on a grassy bank close to the side of the road. The sun had set and the light was beginning to fail.
‘ Alice, do you ever tell lies?’ I asked.
‘Everybody tells lies sometimes,’ she replied. ‘Wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. But mostly I tell the truth.’
‘What about that night when I was trapped in the pit? When I asked you about those cakes. You said there hadn’t been another child at Lizzie’s house. Was that true?’
‘Didn’t see one.’
‘The first one that went missing was no more than a baby. It couldn’t have wandered off by itself. Are you sure?’
Alice nodded and then bowed her head, staring down at the grass.
‘I suppose it could have been carried off by wolves,’ I said. ‘That’s what the village lads thought.’
‘Lizzie said she’s seen wolves in these parts. That could be it,’ Alice agreed.
‘So what about the cakes, Alice? What was in them?’
‘Suet and pork bits mostly. Breadcrumbs too.’
‘What about the blood, then? Animal blood wouldn’t have been good enough for Mother Malkin. Not when she needed enough strength to bend the bars over the pit. So where did the blood come from, Alice – the blood that was used in the cakes?’
Alice started to cry. I waited patiently for her to finish then asked the question again.
‘Well, where did it come from?’
‘Lizzie said I was still a child,’ Alice said. ‘They’d used my blood lots of times. So one more time didn’t matter much. It don’t hurt that much. Not when you get used to it. How could I stop Lizzie anyway?’
With that, Alice pushed up her sleeve and showed me her upper arm. There was still enough light to see the scars. And there were a lot of them – some old; some relatively new. The newest one of all hadn’t healed properly yet. It was still weeping.
‘There’s more than that. Lots more. But I can’t show ‘em all,’ Alice said.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept quiet. But I’d already made up my mind, and soon we walked off into the dark, away from Chipenden.
I’d decided to take Alice straight to Staumin, where her aunt lived. I couldn’t bear the thought of her ending up in a pit in the Spook’s garden. It was just too terrible – and I remembered another pit. I remembered how Alice had helped me from Tusk’s pit just before Bony Lizzie had come to collect my bones. But above all it was what Alice had just told me that had finally changed my mind. Once, she’d been one of the innocents. Alice had been a victim too.
We climbed Parlick Pike, then moved north onto Blindhurst Fell, always keeping to the high ground.
I liked the idea of going to Staumin. It was near the coast and I’d never seen the sea before, except from the tops of the fells. The route I chose was more than a bit out of the way, but I fancied exploring and liked being up there close to the sun. Anyway, Alice didn’t seem to mind at all.
It was a good journey and I enjoyed Alice ’s company, and for the first time we really started to talk. She taught me a lot too. She knew the names of more stars than I did and was really good at catching rabbits.
As for plants, Alice was an expert on things that the Spook hadn’t even mentioned so far, such as deadly nightshade and mandrake. I didn’t believe everything she said, but I wrote it down anyway because she’d been taught it by Lizzie and I thought it was useful to learn what a witch believes. Alice was really good at distinguishing mushrooms from poisonous toadstools, some of which were so dangerous that one bite would stop your heart or drive you insane. I had my notebook with me and under the heading called ‘Botany’ I added three more pages of useful information.