The Spook’s Revenge: Book 13 (Spooks) (5 page)

WITHIN THE HOUR
we had set off from Chipenden, heading north across the fells. I was carrying both bags as well as my staff, and I also had an extra burden – a bundle of firewood tied to my back. There were no trees up there and we planned to cook supper.

I went with mixed feelings. On one hand it was good to be travelling with my master, who suddenly seemed invigorated and enthusiastic. I was also intrigued by the Wardstone. Was it just coincidence that it shared my name? I wondered. I remembered noticing that when I’d first spotted the place on the Spook’s map.

However, one part of me would have preferred to stay close to Chipenden. That was where Alice would go if she managed to defeat the Fiend using magic. I was desperate for news; desperate to see her again. I’d even tried using a mirror to contact her – something that would have infuriated my master. But although I’d called her name repeatedly, she hadn’t responded. Why couldn’t I reach her now? That failure made me even more worried. But I’d had no choice but to leave with the Spook.

It was good walking weather, chillier up on the fell-tops, but the sun was shining and the breeze was light. There were curlews swooping down to glide low over the tufts of grass, and fresh rabbit droppings, suggesting that supper wouldn’t be too difficult to find. Out to the northwest I could see the light blue waters of Morecambe Bay sparkling in the sunlight. We had trekked this way many times together; we would often bypass Caster, with its ancient castle, keeping well to the east. If there was a witchfinder operating in the County, this was where he was usually based. And most of them believed spooks to be fair game. We dabbled with the dark, and that was as good an excuse as any to hang us.

But this time, instead of continuing past Caster, we turned directly east and went deeper into the fells than I’d ever been before. The Spook was still setting a lively pace and seemed to know exactly where he was going. By now the breeze had become a chill wind battering us from the west. Clouds were racing overhead and I could smell rain.

‘You’ve visited the Wardstone before?’ I asked.

‘Aye, lad, I certainly have – twice, to be exact. The first time I came as a young spook, soon after the death of my master. He’d told me a bit about it, and I was curious enough to want to see it for myself. The second time was soon after your mam wrote me that letter. You remember which one I’m talking about?’

‘The one she wrote to you in Greek just after I’d been born?’

‘That’s the one, lad. It stuck in my memory: I can still recite it word for word!
I’ve just given birth to a baby boy
, she wrote.
And he’s the seventh son of a seventh son. His name is Thomas J. Ward and he’s my gift to the County. When he’s old enough we’ll send you word. Train him well. He’ll be the best apprentice you’ve ever had and he’ll also be your last.
’

The final sentence made me sad, but I had to expect that unless something happened to me, I
would
probably be my master’s last apprentice. Once again I had a sense of things coming to an end, but I shook it off and tried to think positively. My master and I probably had years left to work together.

‘I remember you telling me about it just after you’d taken me to the haunted house in Horshaw to see if I was brave enough to become your apprentice. You seemed angry about the letter.’

‘It annoyed me at the time because of its presumption,’ the Spook explained. ‘I’d never met your mam then, and I wondered just who she thought she was – to decide who my apprentice would be. Not only that: there was an element of prophecy in her letter – and as you know, I believe in free will; that we shape the future ourselves with our daily choices.’

‘But that letter made you want to visit the Wardstone again? Is that right? Was it something to do with my name and the name of the hill being the same?’

‘Curb your curiosity and practise a little patience; it’s a quality that’s very useful when studying the unexplained. You’ll find out when we get there, lad,’ my master retorted. ‘Now the sun will be going down in a couple of hours, so I think we’ve gone far enough for one day. Why don’t you catch us a couple of rabbits for our supper?’

I was hungry and only too pleased to nod in agreement. The Spook found us a hollow in which to shelter from the wind, and I was glad to put down our bags and my staff and remove the bundle of wood from my back. My master was already laying the fire as I set off to hunt for our supper.

A couple of hours later we were eating the rabbits I’d caught and cooked. We didn’t speak much, but we were both enjoying ourselves. It was just like the early days, when I first became his apprentice and we used to walk across the fells a lot. I’d been nervous about the job and sometimes scared too. But there’d been a sense of everything just beginning. Things had seemed so simple, I realized; now everything was much more complicated. Sometimes it was just good to appreciate being alive and not worry about the more problematic things . . . though the delicious rabbits put me in mind of Alice. She usually did the hunting and cooking when we were travelling and the thought tempered my happiness a little.

The rain began just before dawn and woke us. By then, the wind had become a gale, driving the rain almost horizontally above us so that mostly we remained dry in our hollow. But we could hear it drumming on the ground above and I knew that the second phase of our journey to the Wardstone would be delayed.

‘We’ll sleep late, lad,’ said the Spook. ‘It’ll be wet enough up on yonder hill without turning ourselves into drowned rats before we even begin.’

It was almost noon before the rain finally stopped and we were able to continue our journey east. The wind had died away almost to nothing, but the visibility was worsening.

‘I’ll carry my own bag,’ the Spook told me. ‘The going gets difficult soon and you’ll need the support of your staff.’

He was quickly proved correct as we left what he told me was Grit Fell – to follow a meandering muddy track through clumps of reddish grass.

‘Keep to the path, lad,’ he warned. ‘The ground on either side is not just soggy. There are deep pools of stagnant water, no doubt swollen by the recent heavy rain. It’s worse where the grass grows tallest.’

Without the Spook to guide me, I’d probably have blundered into the bog. He knew the County like the back of his hand, and still had lots to teach me about travelling across it, particularly remote places like this.

Finally we reached the summit of the Wardstone. Here we were shrouded in low cloud and unable to see that we were walking across one of the highest places in the County.

‘There it is!’ The Spook pointed ahead of us. Through the mist I could see a gigantic rock to which the name ‘Wardstone’ was also given. There were smaller rocks surrounding it, half buried in the ground.

My master walked right up to it and put his left hand against the wall of stone that rose into the sky before him. ‘Place your palm against it too,’ he commanded.

I obeyed.

‘Tell me what you feel,’ he said.

‘It’s warm to the touch.’

It was strange but true – there was no doubt. Despite the chill, damp air, the rock seemed to be radiating heat.

‘And what else, lad? There’s something else. Can you tell what it is?’

At first I couldn’t work out what he meant, but then I became aware that everything seemed very still. I was breathing very slowly – unnaturally slowly. I could feel the pulse of blood circulating through my body too. It was so slow that I thought for a moment that my heart had stopped.

I snatched my hand away from the rock, and immediately my breathing and heart-rate returned to normal. When I put my hand back on it, everything slowed again. The Spook beckoned me away from the Wardstone, and I followed him for about twenty paces.

‘Did you feel it?’ he asked, coming to a halt.

‘It slows time. The Wardstone slows down time!’ I exclaimed excitedly.

‘And you can do that too, lad, can’t you? But what’s the difference here?’

My ability to slow down time was a gift that had saved my life on many occasions when fighting servants of the dark – most importantly the Fiend, who had the same power. I’d prevented him from moving for long enough for us to launch our attack on him.

But what
was
the difference here? I thought carefully before replying.

‘When I use my gift, I’m in control. Everything slows down, but I’m free to move. Here, it’s the Wardstone slowing time, affecting everything around it. But, of course, being a big chunk of rock, it can’t move.’

‘Can’t it, lad? Are you sure?’

‘How can a rock move?’

‘Maybe it can move through time. I’m just speculating, but it’s a possibility. I’ll tell you the reason for my thinking. There are eye-witness accounts from some who’ve climbed to the summit of this big hill to find, to their astonishment, that the rock wasn’t there. It had vanished. So where would it go, lad, but into a different time?’

‘Were they reliable witnesses?’

‘Some were fools, that’s for sure,’ the Spook answered with a smile, ‘but others were sensible folk not much given to flights of fantasy. But it’s a coincidence, isn’t it: a rock that goes by your name also being able to affect time? And isn’t it strange that this should be the location specified for the ritual? There’s a lot needs explaining . . . Now I’m going to show you something that’s also strange.’

My master led the way widdershins around the rock. He came to a sudden halt, staring at its surface, then moved closer. For a moment I thought he intended to place his hand against it again. Instead he pointed with his index finger.

‘Read that,’ he commanded.

I approached it, and saw that words had been carved into the rock-face. It looked a little like a poem, because it was set out in a pattern and not all the lines were of equal length. The inscription was partly covered in moss, making sections of it hard to read, so it took me a few moments to decipher it while my master waited patiently.

T
HE HIGHEST POINT IN THE
C
OUNTY IS MARKED BY MYSTERY
.

I
T IS SAID THAT A MAN DIED THERE IN A GREAT STORM, WHILE BINDING AN EVIL THAT THREATENED THE WHOLE WORLD
.

T
HEN THE ICE CAME AGAIN, AND WHEN IT

RETREATED, EVEN THE SHAPES OF THE HILLS AND THE NAMES OF THE TOWNS IN THE VALLEYS CHANGED
.

N
OW, AT THE HIGHEST POINT ON THE FELLS, NO TRACE REMAINS OF WHAT WAS DONE SO LONG AGO, BUT ITS NAME HAS ENDURED
.

T
HEY CALL IT
–

T
HE
W
ARDSTONE
.

‘Well, lad, you’ve read it. What have you to say for yourself?’

‘It might have been someone with my name who bound the evil, whatever it was,’ I suggested.

‘Aye, it might – that’s a possibility. But the word
ward
also means something else. It’s the old name for a district. So the stone might simply mark the corner of some plot of land whose ownership has long been forgotten; it might be nothing to do with your family name. Does anything else come to mind?’ my master asked.

‘Whatever happened here was a long time ago. How long ago was the last Ice Age?’

‘Thousands of years, lad – I reckon it was thousands and thousands of years back in time.’

‘That’s a long time ago to have an ancestor called Ward – and language changes, doesn’t it? You once told me that during an Ice Age, when it is difficult to survive, men forget knowledge and live in caves and hunt, concentrating on survival. How old is this inscription? It might not be that old – just somebody commemorating a legend.’

‘It’s hard to estimate its age, but it was there at least a hundred years ago because my own master, Henry Horrocks, saw it when he visited the spot as a new apprentice in the company of his master. The truth is, we’ll probably never find out when that lettering was carved into the stone. It’s one of the great mysteries – another example of the unexplained. However, I want to put something else to you, lad. What if this big rock really
can
move through time? If that were true, it would open up two possibilities. The inscription might be a record of something that happened long ago in the past. But what else could it be?’

I didn’t have to think. It was as if a deep part of my brain had always known and now surrendered the knowledge to my conscious mind. When I opened my mouth, the words just fell out, as if they had been readying themselves to escape.

‘It could point to something that’s going to happen in the future. It could have been written in the distant future, looking back on events yet to happen in our time. It could be a prophecy.’

The Spook seemed deep in thought. He didn’t believe in scrying – for him the future could not be fixed. But during my years of training with him I had seen that belief challenged over and over again.

‘On the other hand, the Wardstone might go somewhere else but stay in our own time,’ he suggested.

‘What do you mean? Where else could it go?’

‘Some folks believe that there are other worlds, invisible but very close to ours. You should know, lad: you’ve been to one of ’em yourself – the Hollow Hills, where you got that sword, is one example. Of course, that could be just an extension of the dark.’

‘Could the Wardstone go to the dark?’

‘Who knows? It’s part of the unexplained, and another mystery to be solved.’

Then, without another word, my master led me off the fell and we headed back towards Chipenden.