The Spook's Battle Read Online Free Page A

them over the fire, the juice dribbling and hissing into the flames while my mouth watered.I was still curious about Pendle, and despite Alice's reluctance to talk about her life there, I decided to try again."Come on, Alice," I said. "I know it's painful for you to talk about, but I do need to know more about Pendle. . . .""I suppose so," Alice said, peering at me over the flames. "Best that you're prepared for the worst. Ain't a nice place to be. And everybody's scared. Whichever village you visit, you can see it in their faces. Can't blame em, because the witches know almost everything that's going on. After dark, most ordinary folk turn the mirrors in their houses to the wall."
     "Why?" I asked."So they can't be spied on. Nobody trusts a mirror at night. Witches, specially the Mouldheels, use them to spy on folks. They love to use em for scrying and spying. In Pendle you never know who or what might suddenly peer out at you from a mirror. Remember old Mother Malkin? That should give you some idea of the sort of witch we'll be facing."The name Malkin sent a chill through my bones. Mother Malkin had been the most evil witch in the County, and a year earlier, with Alice's help, I'd managed to destroy her. But not before she'd threatened the lives of Jack and his family.
     "Even though she's gone now, in Pendle there's always someone else ready to step into the shoes of a dead witch," Alice said grimly. "And there are plenty of Malkins capable of that. Some of em live in Malkin Tower, which ain't a place to go anywhere near after dark. People who go missing in Pendle --that's where they mostly end up. There are tunnels, pits, and dungeons under the tower, full of the bones of those they've murdered.""Why isn't something done?" I asked. "What about the high sheriff at Caster? Can't he do anything?""Sent justices and constables to Pendle before, he has. Lots of times. Not that it did much good. Mostly they hanged the wrong people. Old Hannah Fairborne was one. She was nearly eighty when they dragged her off to Caster in chains. Said she was a witch, but that wasn't true. Still, she deserved to hang because she poisoned three of her nephews. Lots of that goes on in Pendle. It ain't a good place to be. And it ain't easy to sort things out there. That's why Old Gregory's left it so long."I nodded in agreement."I know more than most what it's like to live there," Alice continued. "There've been lots of unions between Malkins and Deanes, even though they're rivals. Truth is, the Malkins and Deanes hate the Mouldheels a lot more than they do each other. Life in Pendle is complicated. Lived there most of my life but still don't understand em.""Were you happy?" I asked. "I mean, before you were looked after by Bony Lizzie?"
     Alice grew silent and avoided my gaze, and I realized that I shouldn't have asked. She'd never talked much about life with her parents or with Lizzie after they'd died."Don't remember life much before Lizzie," she said at last. "I mostly remember the rows. Me lying there in the darkness crying while my mam and dad fought like cat and dog. But sometimes they talked and laughed as well, so it wasn't all bad. That was the big difference afterward. The silence. Lizzie didn't say much. More likely to give me a clout round the head than a kind word. Brooded a lot, she did. Gazed into the fire and muttered her spells. And if she weren't gawping into the flames, she'd be staring into a mirror. Sometimes I caught sight of things over her shoulder. Things that don't belong on this earth. Scared me, it did. Preferred Mam and Dad's fights to that.''"Did you live in Malkin Tower?"Alice shook her head. "No. Only the Malkin coven and a few chosen helpers live in the tower itself. But I went there sometimes with my mam. Some of it's underground, but I never went down there. They all live together in one big room, and there was lots of arguing and screaming and smoke stinging your eyes.
      Being a Deane, my dad didn't visit the