I’d seen nothing and heard nothing. When I did, it was already too late. Without warning, the empty sack was snatched out of my hand and dropped over my head and shoulders and everything went dark. Strong hands gripped me, pinning my arms to my sides. I struggled for a few moments, but it was useless: I was lifted and carried as easily as a farm hand carries a sack of potatoes. While I was being carried, I heard voices - Alice’s voice and then the voice of a woman; I supposed it was Bony Lizzie. The person carrying me just grunted, so it had to be Tusk.
Alice had lured me into a trap. It had all been carefully planned. They must have been hiding in the ditch as I came down the hill from the house.
I was scared, more scared than I’d ever been in my life before. I mean, I’d killed Mother Malkin and she’d been Lizzie’s grandmother. So what were they going to do to me now?
* * *
After an hour or so I was dropped onto the ground so hard that all the air was driven from my lungs.
As soon as I could breathe again, I struggled to get free of the sack, but somebody thumped me twice in the back - thumped me so hard that I kept very still. I’d have done anything to avoid being hit like that again so I lay there, hardly daring to breathe while the pain slowly faded to a dull ache.
They used rope to tie me then, binding it over the sack, around my arms and head and knotting it tightly. Then Lizzie said something that chilled me to the bone.
‘There, we’ve got him safe enough. You can start digging now.’
Her face came very close to mine so that I could smell her foul breath through the sacking. It was like the breath of a dog or a cat. ‘Well, boy,’ she said. ‘How does it feel to know that you’ll never see the light of day again?’
When I heard the sound of distant digging, I began to shiver with fright. I remembered the Spook’s tale of the miner’s wife, especially the worst bit of all when she’d lain there paralysed, unable to cry out while her husband dug her grave. Now it was going to happen to me. I was going to be buried alive and I’d have done anything just to see daylight again, even for a moment.
At first, when they cut my ropes and pulled the sack from me, I was relieved. By then the sun had gone down, but I looked up and could see the stars, with the waning moon low over the trees. I felt the wind on my face and it had never felt so good. My feeling of relief didn’t last more than a few moments though, because I started to wonder exactly what they had in mind for me. I couldn’t think of anything worse than being buried alive, but Bony Lizzie probably could.
To be honest, when I saw Tusk close up for the first time, he wasn’t quite as bad as I expected. In a way he’d looked worse the night he was chasing me. He wasn’t as old as the Spook but his face was lined and weatherbeaten, and a mass of greasy grey hair covered his head. His teeth were too big to fit into his mouth, which meant that he could never close it properly, and two of them curved upwards like yellow tusks on either side of his nose. He was big too, and very hairy with powerful muscular arms. I’d felt that grip and had thought it bad enough, but I knew that he had the power in those shoulders to squeeze me so tightly that all the air would be forced from my body and my ribs would shatter.
Tusk had a big curved knife at his belt, with a blade that looked very sharp. But the worst thing about him was his eyes. They were completely dull. It was as if there was nothing alive inside his head; he was just something that obeyed Bony Lizzie without even a thought. I knew that he’d do anything she told him without question, no matter how terrible it was.
As for Bony Lizzie, she wasn’t skinny at all and I knew, from my reading in the Spook’s library, that she was probably called that because she used bone magic. I’d already smelled her breath, but at a glance you’d never have taken her for a witch. She wasn’t like Mother Malkin, all shrivelled with age, looking like something that was already dead. No, Bony Lizzie was just an older version of Alice. Probably no older than thirty-five, she had pretty brown eyes and hair as black as her niece’s. She wore a green shawl and a black dress fastened neatly at her slim waist with a narrow leather belt. There was certainly a family resemblance - except for her mouth. It wasn’t the shape of it, it was the way she moved it; the way it twisted and sneered when she talked. One other thing I noticed was that she never looked me in the eye.
Alice wasn’t like that. She had a nice mouth, still shaped for smiling, but I realized then that she would eventually become just like Bony Lizzie.
Alice had tricked me. She was the reason I was here rather than safe and sound back in the Spook’s house, eating my supper.
At a nod from Bony Lizzie, Tusk grabbed me and tied my hands behind my back. Then he seized me by the arm and dragged me through the trees. First of all I saw the mound of dark soil, then the deep pit beside it, and I smelled the wet, loamy stink of freshly turned earth. It smelled sort of dead and alive at the same time, with things brought to the surface that really belonged deep underground.
The pit was probably more than seven feet deep, but unlike the one the Spook had kept Mother Malkin in, it was irregular in shape, just a great big hole with steep sides. I remember thinking that with all the practice I’d had, I could have dug one far better.
At that moment the moon showed me something else - something I’d have preferred not to see. About three paces away, to the left of the pit, there was an oblong of freshly turned soil. It looked just like a new grave.
Without time even to begin worrying about that, I was dragged right to the edge of the pit and Tusk forced my head back. I had a glimpse of Bony Lizzie’s face close to mine, something hard was jammed into my mouth and a cold, bitter-tasting liquid was poured down my throat. It tasted vile and filled my throat and mouth to the brim, spilling over and even erupting out of my nose so that I began to choke, gasping and struggling for breath. I tried to spit it out but Bony Lizzie pinched my nostrils hard with her finger and thumb, so that in order to breathe I first had to swallow.
That done, Tusk let go of my head and transferred his grip back to my left arm. I saw then what had been forced into my mouth - Bony Lizzie held it up for me to see. It was a small bottle made out of dark glass. A bottle with a long, narrow neck. She turned it so that its neck was pointing to the ground and a few drops fell to the earth. The rest was already in my stomach.
What had I drunk? Had she poisoned me?
‘That’ll keep your eyes wide open, boy,’ she said with a sneer. ‘Wouldn’t want you dozing off, would we? Wouldn’t want you to miss anything.’
Without warning, Tusk swung me round violently towards the pit and my stomach lurched as I fell into space. I landed heavily but the earth at the bottom was soft, and although the fall winded me, I was unhurt. So I twisted round to look up at the stars, thinking that maybe I was going to be buried alive after all. But instead of a shovelful of dirt falling towards me, I saw the outline of Bony Lizzie’s head and shoulders peering down, a silhouette against the stars. She started to chant in a strange sort of throaty whisper, though I couldn’t catch the actual words.
Next she stretched her arms out above the pit and I could see that she was holding something in each hand. Giving a strange cry, she opened her hands and two white things dropped towards me, landing in the mud close to my knees.
By the moonlight I saw clearly what they were. They almost seemed to be glowing. She’d dropped two bones into the pit. They were thumb-bones - I could see the knuckles.
‘Enjoy your last night on this earth, boy,’ she called down to me. ‘But don’t worry, you won’t be lonely because I’ll leave you in good company. Dead Billy will be coming to claim his bones. Just next door, he is, so he’s not got too far to go. He’ll be with you soon and you two have a lot in common. He was Old Gregory’s last apprentice and he won’t take kindly to you having taken his place. Then, just before dawn, we’ll be paying you one last visit. We’ll be coming to collect your bones. They’re special, your bones are, even better than Billy’s, and taken fresh they’ll be the most useful
I’ve had for a long time.’
Her face drew back and I heard footsteps walking away.
So that was what was going to happen to me. If Lizzie wanted my bones it meant that she was going to kill me. I remembered the big curved blade that Tusk wore at his belt and I began to tremble.
Before that I had Dead Billy to face. When she’d said, ‘Just next door’, she must have meant the new grave next to the pit. But the Spook had said that Billy Bradley was buried just outside the churchyard at Layton. Lizzie must have dug up his body, cut off his thumbs and buried the rest of him here amongst the trees. Now he’d be coming to get his thumbs back.
Would Billy Bradley want to hurt me? I’d never done him any harm but he’d probably enjoyed being the Spook’s apprentice. Maybe he’d looked forward to finishing his time and becoming a spook himself. Now I’d taken what he once had. Not only that - what about Bony Lizzie’s spell? He might think I was the one who’d cut off his thumbs and thrown them into the pit...
I managed to kneel up and spent the next few minutes desperately trying to untie my hands. It was hopeless. My struggles seemed to be making the rope even tighter.
I felt strange too: light-headed and dry-mouthed. When I looked up at the stars they seemed to be very bright and each star had a twin. If I concentrated hard, I could make the double stars become single again, but as soon as I relaxed, they drifted apart. My throat was burning and my heart pounding three or four times faster than its normal pace.
I kept thinking about what Bony Lizzie had said. Dead Billy would be coming to find his bones. Bones that were lying in the mud less than two paces from where I was kneeling. If my hands had been free, I’d have hurled them from the pit.
Suddenly I saw a slight movement to my left. Had I been standing, it would’ve been just about level with my head. I looked up and watched as a long, plump, white, maggoty head emerged from the side of the pit. It was far, far bigger than any worm I’d ever seen before. Its blind, bloated head moved in a slow circle as it wriggled out the rest of its body. What could this be? Was it poisonous? Could it bite?
And then it came to me. It was a coffin worm! It must be something that had been living in Billy Bradley’s coffin, growing fat and sleek. Something white that had never seen the light of day!
I shuddered as the coffin worm wriggled out of the dark earth and plopped into the mud at my feet. I lost sight of it then as it quickly burrowed beneath the surface.
Being so big, the white worm had dislodged quite a bit of soil from the side of the pit, leaving behind a hole like a narrow tunnel. I watched it, horrified but fascinated, because there was something else moving inside it. Something disturbing the earth, which was cascading from the hole to form a growing mound of soil.
Not knowing what it was made it worse. I had to see what was inside so I struggled to get to my feet. I staggered, feeling light-headed again, the stars starting to spin. I almost fell but I managed to take a step, lurching forward so that I was close to the narrow tunnel, now just about level with my head.
When I looked inside, I wished I hadn’t.
I saw bones. Human bones. Bones that were joined together. Bones that were moving. Two hands without thumbs. One of them without fingers. Bones squelching in the mud, dragging themselves towards me through the soft earth. A grinning skull with gaping teeth.
It was Dead Billy, but instead of eyes, his black sockets stared back at me, cavernous and empty. When a white, fleshless hand emerged into the moonlight and jerked towards my face, I stepped backwards, nearly falling, sobbing with fear.
At that moment, just when I thought I might go out of my mind with terror, the air suddenly became much colder and I sensed something to my right. Someone else had joined me in the pit. Someone who was standing where it was impossible to stand. Half his body was on view; the rest was embedded in the wall of earth.
It was a boy not much older than me. I could only see his left-hand side because the rest of him was somewhere behind, still in the soil. Just as easily as stepping through a door, he swung his right shoulder towards me and the rest of him entered the pit. He smiled at me. A warm, friendly smile.
‘The difference between waking and dreaming,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the hardest lessons to learn. Learn it now, Tom. Learn it now before it’s too late ...’
For the first time I noticed his boots. They looked very expensive and had been crafted from best quality leather. They were just like the Spook’s.
He lifted his hands up then, so that they were at each side of his head, palms facing outwards. The thumbs were missing from each hand. His left hand was also without fingers.
It was the ghost of Billy Bradley.
He crossed his hands over his chest and smiled once more. As Billy faded away he seemed happy and at peace.
I understood exactly what he’d told me. No, I wasn’t asleep, but in a way I’d been dreaming. I’d been dreaming the dark dreams that had come out of the bottle that Lizzie had forced into my mouth.
When I turned back to look at the hole, it had gone. There never had been a skeleton crawling towards me. Neither had there been a coffin worm.
The potion must have been some kind of poison: something that made it difficult to tell the difference between waking and dreaming. That was what Lizzie had given me. It had made my heart beat faster and made it impossible for me to sleep. It had kept my eyes wide open, but it had also made them see things that weren’t really there.
Soon afterwards the stars disappeared and it began to rain heavily. It was a long, uncomfortable, cold night and I kept thinking about what would happen to me before dawn. The nearer it got the worse I felt.
About an hour before sunrise the rain eased to a light drizzle before fading away altogether. Once more I could see the stars, and by now they no longer seemed double. I was soaked and cold but my throat had stopped burning.
When a face appeared overhead looking down into the pit, my heart began to race because I thought it was Lizzie come to collect my bones. But to my relief it was Alice.
‘Lizzie’s sent me to see how you’re getting on,’ she called down softly. ‘Has Billy been yet?’
‘He’s been and gone,’ I told her angrily.
‘I never meant for this to happen, Tom. If only you hadn’t meddled, it would have been all right.’
‘Been all right?’ I said. ‘By now another child would be dead and the Spook too, if you’d had your way. And those cakes had the blood of a baby inside. Do you call that being all right? You come from a family of murderers and you’re a murderer yourself!’
‘Ain’t true. It ain’t true, that!’ Alice protested. ‘There was no baby. All I did was give you the cakes.’
‘Even if that were so,’ I insisted, ‘you knew what they were going to do afterwards. And you would’ve let it happen.’
‘I ain’t that strong, Tom. How could I stop it? How could I stop Lizzie?’
‘I’ve chosen what I want to do,’ I told her. ‘But what will you choose, Alice? Bone magic or blood magic? Which one? Which one will it be?’
‘Ain’t going to do either. I don’t want to be like them. I’ll run away. As soon as I get the chance, I’ll be off.’
‘If you mean that, then help me now. Help me to get out of the pit. We could run away together.’
‘It’s too dangerous now,’ Alice said. ‘I’ll run away later. Maybe weeks from now when they ain’t expecting it.’
‘You mean after I’m dead. When you’ve got more blood on your hands ...’
Alice didn’t reply. I heard her begin to cry softly, but just when I thought she was on the verge of changing her mind and helping me, she walked away.
I sat there in the pit, dreading what was going to happen to me, remembering the hanging men and now knowing exactly how they must have felt before they died. I knew that I’d never go home. Never see my family again. I’d just about given up all hope when footsteps approached the pit. I stood up, terrified, but it was Alice again.
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‘Oh, Tom, I’m sorry,’ she said. "They’re sharpening their knives ...’
The worst moment of all was approaching and I knew that I only had one chance. The only hope I had was Alice.
‘If you’re really sorry, then you’ll help me,’ I said softly.
‘Ain’t nothing I can do,’ she cried. ‘Lizzie could turn on me. She don’t trust me. Thinks I’m soft.’
‘Go and fetch Mr Gregory,’ I said. ‘Bring him here.’
‘Too late for that, ain’t it,’ Alice sobbed, shaking her head. ‘Bones taken in daylight are no use to Lizzie. No use at all. The best time to take bones is just before the sun comes up. So they’ll be coming for you in a few minutes. That’s all the time you’ve got.’
‘Then get me a knife,’ I said.
‘No use, that,’ she said. ‘Too strong, they are. Can’t fight ‘em, can you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I want it to cut the rope. I’m going to run for it.’
Suddenly Alice was gone. Had she gone to fetch a knife or would she be too scared of Lizzie? I waited a few moments, but when she didn’t come back I became desperate. I struggled, trying to pull my wrists apart, trying to snap the rope, but it was no use.
When a face peered down at me, my heart jumped with fear, but it was Alice holding something out over the pit. She dropped it, and as it fell, metal gleamed in the moonlight.
Alice hadn’t let me down. It was a knife. If I could just cut the rope I’d be free ...
At first, even with my hands tied behind my back, I never had any doubt in my mind that I could do it. The only danger was that I might cut myself a bit, but what did that matter compared to what they’d do to me before the sun came up? It didn’t take me long to get a grip on the knife. Positioning it against the rope was more difficult and it was very hard to move it. When I dropped it for the second time, I began to panic. There couldn’t be more than a minute or so before they came for me.