The Spook's Mistake

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Carrying my staff, I went into the kitchen and picked up the empty sack. It would be dark in less than an hour but I'd just enough time to walk down to the village and collect the week's provisions. All we had left was a few eggs and a small wedge of County cheese.

Two days earlier the Spook had gone south to deal with a boggart. Annoyingly, this was the second time in a month that my master had gone off on a job without me. Each time he'd said it was routine, nothing that I hadn't seen before in my apprenticeship; it would be more useful for me to stay at home practising my Latin and catching up with my studies. I didn't argue but I wasn't best pleased. You see, I thought he'd another reason for leaving me behind — he was trying to protect me.

Towards the end of the summer, the Pendle witches had summoned the Fiend into our world. He was the dark made flesh, the Devil himself. For two days he'd been under their control and commanded to destroy me. I'd taken refuge in a special room Mam had prepared for me, and that had saved me. The Fiend was now doing his own dark will but there was no certainty that he wouldn't come hunting for me again. It was something I tried not to think about. One thing was certain: with the Fiend in the world, the County was becoming a much more dangerous place — especially for those who fought the dark. But that didn't mean I could hide away from danger for ever. I was just an apprentice now, but one day I would be a spook and have to take the same risks as my master, John Gregory. I just wished he could see it that way too.

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