Alice (13 page)

I realized that these water witches were exceptionally strong, and wondered how Lizzie dared to try and enlist them in her cause. What if they turned on us? All her magic would be useless against so many fierce creatures who seemed hardly human at all.

For now they were feeding upon the remains of the skelt, breaking into its body cavities to feed, splitting its limbs with their teeth to strip the meat from within.

I watched them, revolted and yet unable to pull my gaze away from the sight. It was then that I heard the barking . . .

The witches looked up from their frantic feeding. Now, in addition to the baying of approaching dogs, I could hear the pounding of heavy boots.

‘It’s Arkwright and those wolfhounds, back sooner than we expected!’ Lizzie hissed into my ear. ‘Whatever you do, girl, don’t move and don’t make a sound. The cloak should protect us from the spook, but the biggest danger is that the dogs might sniff us out. With luck they’ll be too busy biting pieces out of our slimy sisters!’

As the dogs emerged from the mist, teeth gleaming in the moonlight, saliva dripping from their open jaws, most of the witches ran for the water. They entered quickly, with hardly a splash, submerged and disappeared from sight.

For some reason, about five of them sprinted along
another path into the marsh. I thought they were going to escape too, but the last one left it too late.

The first wolfhound seized her ankle in its jaws. She fell to her knees but struck back viciously at the animal. The long talons would have sliced open its head but, just in time, the second dog leaped onto her and gripped her wrist firmly in its jaws, shaking it like a rat.

The dogs looked capable of finishing her off, and she began to shriek and thrash, trying to drag herself back towards the water’s edge. But then the shaven-headed spook emerged from the mist and, with a curse, clubbed the witch with his long staff, striking her on the back of the skull. She went limp, and without hesitation he seized her by her long matted hair.

‘Good girl! Good lad!’ he exclaimed. ‘Now let go and we’ll take her back and put her where she rightly belongs!’

At that, the dogs obediently relinquished their prey and Arkwright began to drag the witch away by the legs, her head bouncing along the muddy path.

Lizzie grinned at the sight of this. I couldn’t understand it. This spook was the enemy of witches. It could just as easily be our heads banging on the ground.

Within moments spook, water witch and hounds had vanished into the mist.

When the sounds of their retreat had faded away, Lizzie turned towards me and twisted her face into an evil smile. ‘Well, girl, this could work out better than I expected!’ she said, full of glee.

‘I don’t understand. Doesn’t this spoil your plan?’ I asked.

‘Be patient and I’ll explain later. Just keep still and be quiet.’

But I was curious and couldn’t resist asking Lizzie a question.

‘Why did the witches let the skelt feed first, before taking the victims’ blood at second-hand?’ I asked. ‘They’re really strong. They could have ripped those people to pieces with their bare hands!’

‘Of course they could, girl!’ Lizzie snapped. ‘But that’s part of their ritual, ain’t it? Taking human blood that the skelt has already sucked up triples the strength of the magic.’

After about half an hour, to my dismay, I once more heard the barking of the dogs getting louder and louder.

‘They must have our scent,’ I told Lizzie nervously. ‘Let’s run for it!’

‘You stay put, girl. Got scents aplenty, they have, but they ain’t ours, don’t you worry.’

I didn’t understand how she could be so sure. Once more the dogs bounded out of the mist, the grim-faced spook hard on their heels. For one heart-stopping moment I thought they were going to run right at us, but then the dogs halted on the bank near the cage, sniffing at the blood-soaked ground and moving in widening circles.

Within moments they had bounded away down the path taken by the escaping witches, and Arkwright followed, gripping his staff, his face hard with determination.

When at last the sound of their pursuit faded away into the distance, I whispered to Lizzie, ‘Wouldn’t like to meet him on a dark night.’

‘You ain’t spoken a truer word, girl. They don’t come any meaner. It’s one thing to deal with an old spook like Jacob Stone; facing the Arkwrights of this world is a different matter. Ruthless, he is, and never gives up. Those dogs of his can track prey even across a marsh; before dawn he’ll no doubt catch at least one more of our slimy sisters. But while he’s away, we have time to set the first one free!’

With those words Lizzie set off, heading back in the direction we’d come from – towards the old watermill where the spook lived.

When we reached the edge of the moat, Lizzie halted and stared at me hard. ‘What do I want?’ she demanded at last.

‘To be carried across the salty water,’ I replied.

‘Of course I do, girl, so what are you waiting for? Shouldn’t have to ask, should I? You know what needs to be done!’ she hissed.

So I gave Lizzie a piggy-back across the moat, through cold water that came just above my knees. I wasn’t yet a witch, so neither the water nor the salt worried me. On the other side, she led the way towards the dilapidated mill. I thought she was going to try and get in through the front door, or maybe break a window. Instead she went round the side, heading towards the waterwheel. There were bits of it missing – it didn’t look like it had moved in years, despite the stream that still flowed beneath it.

There was a narrow door beside the wheel, but when Lizzie turned the handle and pushed, she found it was locked.

‘Soon have that open,’ she crowed, bending forward so
her mouth was level with the lock. Then she spat into it and muttered a spell I didn’t know under her breath. She cocked her head and placed her ear next to it, as if listening for something.

Don’t know why she needed to put her dirty ear-hole so close. I heard it from three paces away – the grind and click as the lock opened. With a smile of triumph, Lizzie seized the handle again, turned it and opened the door.

Inside there was a stink of rotten wood and the air was damp. It was muddy underfoot, and on our left through the gloom I could make out the big curve of the waterwheel. With a mutter, Lizzie tugged something out of her skirt pocket. Instantly a flame flickered into life, and she held it up and led the way forward.

She moved slowly and cautiously. No doubt she reckoned the spook might have set some sort of trap to catch anyone who managed to get inside. She shuffled right and left, as if searching for something. Then, at last, she found it.

We came to the edge of a square pit with thirteen bars across the top. Lizzie held out the candle to illuminate it. The pit was filled with water, but there was a shelf of mud on one side and the captured water witch was lying there on her back, looking up at us, her eyes gleaming in the candlelight.

I’d thought that some of the Pendle witches were ugly, but this water witch was truly grotesque, with her big scary fangs. Would we be safe if Lizzie freed her from the pit? I wondered.

‘Listen, sister,’ Lizzie called down to her. ‘Come to get you free, we have. In return I’ve a proposal for you, and
another eleven of your kind. Will you take us to your keeper so we can talk terms?’

I wondered what Lizzie meant by ‘your keeper’, but as usual she didn’t bother to explain what was going on.

The witch got to her knees and looked directly at Lizzie. Then I saw her nod.

‘Right’ – Lizzie smirked at me – ‘we have a deal, girl. I’ll soon get her out of here. No time for rats and flies magic, so it’s lucky we aren’t in Chipenden facing one of John Gregory’s witch pits. There the bars are securely fixed in place, and without magic we’d need the help of a blacksmith to pull ’em free. Here it’s just a hinged lid with two locks. Do you know why Arkwright makes it so easy to get in and out of this pit?’

I shrugged. I hadn’t got a clue.

‘When John Gregory puts a witch in a pit, he means her to stay there until the end of her days, so the bars are permanent. That ain’t the case with Arkwright. If a witch kills an adult, it’s one year in the pit; two if it’s a child. He’s like a judge passing sentence, and at the end of their time he pulls ’em out and kills ’em. To make sure they ain’t coming back from the dead, he cuts out the heart, slices it in half and feeds it to his dogs.’

Bill Arkwright was a really scary spook. Lizzie’s tale made me nervous. What if he tired of the chase and came back? I didn’t fancy being shut in one of his slimy pits!

Lizzie spat into each lock, and within moments both had clicked open. The lid was free, but there was no way that she was going to touch it.

‘Made of iron, those bars are. You’ll have to lift the
lid, girl. You ain’t a witch yet, so you shouldn’t feel much. Get on with it!’

Lizzie might be training me as a witch, but I still had a long way to go yet. So she was right: touching those iron bars didn’t hurt at all. The problem was the weight. I struggled for some time before I managed to raise them high enough for Lizzie to kneel at the pit’s edge and lean down to offer the water witch her hands.

My whole body was shaking with the effort, but I managed to hold it up long enough for the water witch to be dragged to safety. No sooner was she on the mud floor beside the pit than I let the lid fall back into place with a clang.

Then I stepped back two paces very rapidly. The water witch was crouching, face distorted into a bestial snarl, as if ready to spring at us. She looked hungry for blood rather than grateful for being rescued.

‘Right,’ said Lizzie, who didn’t seem in the least perturbed by the witch’s attitude. ‘Let’s get clear of here before Arkwright returns with those bog dogs of his. Lead on, sister,’ she said. ‘Guide us to somewhere safe.’

In reply the water witch merely gave a sort of grimace; it twisted her face so that her mouth opened, revealing more of her sharp yellow teeth. She was covered in slime and dripping with water. She smelled bad too – the stench of mud, rot and stagnant ponds. As she walked ahead of us, she waddled slightly. If I hadn’t been so nervous, I would have laughed. Water witches weren’t suited to land.

We left the mill, and to my surprise, the water witch led
us eastwards, away from the marsh. We crossed the canal by the nearest bridge and then kept to the hedgerows.

Where could we be going? And how could we ever be safe? Once those wolfhounds got our scent, they’d track us down for sure. Hadn’t Lizzie said that Arkwright was relentless and never gave up?

At last, after nearly two hours of scrambling through muddy countryside, the witch pointed across a big field. There was nothing ahead but another distant hedgerow. However, I could sense something; something unseen.

But then the witch uttered some disgusting guttural noises and waved her arm about, making signs in the air.

The air shimmered, and suddenly the outline of a building came into view. It had been hidden by magic – some sort of powerful cloaking spell I’d never seen before. As we approached, I saw that it had once been a farmhouse but now seemed deserted. There were no animals in the fields; no dog set to guard the house. It was in pitch blackness.

Then, by the light of the moon, I saw that there was a large pond beside the house. Most ponds, like middens, were kept some distance away to avoid leakage into the house’s cellar. This one had been extended – and in a most unusual way. The water was deep and came right up to the walls of the house, lapping against the brickwork. There was something else strange too. In what should have been the farmyard sat a huge mound of soil almost as big as the house. It was covered with grass and nettles but didn’t look natural. Who had put it there? What was its purpose, and where had the soil come from?

Without looking back at us, the witch slipped into the dark water and disappeared from sight. She was gone a long time and I wondered if she were gathering some of her sisters to drag us down after her. But then there was a flicker of light from an upstairs window.

‘There’ll be an entrance under the water,’ Lizzie said. ‘No doubt the cellar has been flooded deliberately. But we ain’t going in that way. Let’s go back to the front door.’

Leading the way past the pond, she headed round the side of the house. The glass had gone from the windows, but they had been fixed with board so that you couldn’t see inside. The front door looked rotten but was closed. I felt that a good kick with a pointy shoe would shatter it into soggy pieces.

However, we didn’t need to do that. I heard the sounds of chains being released and bolts being drawn back, and then the door slowly opened, creaking on its hinges.

A stout, round-faced woman with piggy eyes was standing in the doorway holding up a candle, the better to examine our faces. Her hair was a tangle of grey and her eyebrows were unkempt: hairs stuck out like a cat’s whiskers. She looked anything but friendly.

‘What do you want?’ she demanded abruptly.

‘We rescued one of yours from a pit in the spook’s mill,’ Lizzie said, as if that were all she needed to say to gain entry to the house.

But, if so, she was wrong. I didn’t like the look of this woman and sensed some threat from her. She wasn’t a witch, but she looked very confident as she faced Lizzie. That was unusual.
This must be the ‘keeper’ of the water witches that Lizzie had referred to earlier. I couldn’t see why she’d want to live here with all those witches. What did she get out of it?

‘Aye, I know that, but what do you want?’

Lizzie forced a smile onto her face. ‘There’s something needs doing, so I want your help to form a coven with those you keep. Just once and for something special. There’ll be lots of blood for them; power too. What do you say?’

‘What’s your name and where be you from?’

‘My name is Bony Lizzie and I’m from Pendle.’

‘Not much love lost between those from Pendle and those I keep here,’ the woman replied. ‘There’s been trouble in the past – deaths on both sides.’

‘You’ll get no trouble from me, or the girl.’ Lizzie nodded at me. ‘Let bygones be bygones, eh? What I propose will be to the benefit of us all. Can’t I come inside and talk about it? What’s your name – can’t you at least tell me who I’m speaking to?’