I couldn’t believe what I’d just read! The Spook had warned me about pretty women more than once, but here he’d broken his own rule! Meg was a witch and yet he hadn’t put her into the pit!

I quickly leafed through the rest of the notebook, expecting to find another reference to her, but there was nothing – nothing at all! It was as if she’d ceased to exist.

I knew quite a bit about witches, but had never heard of a Lamia witch before so I put the notebook back and searched the next shelf down, where the books were arranged in alphabetical order. I opened the book labelled Witches but there was no reference to a Meg. Why hadn’t the Spook written about her? What had happened to her? Was she still alive? Still out there, somewhere in the County?

I was really curious and I had another idea; I pulled a big book out from the lowest shelf. This was entitled The Bestiary and was an alphabetical listing of all sorts of creatures, witches included. At last I found the entry I wanted: Lamia witches.

It seemed that lamia witches weren’t native to the County but came from lands across the sea. They shunned sunlight, but at night they preyed upon men and drank their blood. They were shape-shifters and belonged to two different categories: the feral and the domestic.

The feral were lamia witches in their natural state, dangerous and unpredictable and with little physical resemblance to humans. All had scales rather than skin and claws rather than fingernails. Some scuttled across the ground on all fours, while others had wings and feathers on their upper bodies and could fly short distances.

But a feral lamia could become a domestic lamia by closely associating with humans. Very gradually, it took a woman’s form and looked human but for a narrow line of green and yellow scales that could still be found on its back, running the length of its spine. Domestic lamias had even been known to grow to share human beliefs. Often they ceased to be malevolent and became benign, working for the good of others.

So had Meg eventually become benign? Had the Spook been right not to bind her in the pit?

Suddenly I realized how late it was and I ran out of the library to my lesson, my head whirling. A few minutes later my master and I were out on the edge of the western garden, under the trees with a clear view of the fells, the autumn sun dropping towards the horizon. I sat on the bench as usual, busy making notes while the Spook paced back and forth dictating. But I couldn’t concentrate.

We started with a Latin lesson. I had a special notebook to write down the grammar and new vocabulary the Spook taught me. There were a lot of lists and the book was almost full.

I wanted to confront the Spook with what I’d just read, but how could I? I’d broken a rule myself by not keeping to the books he’d specified. I wasn’t supposed to have been reading his diaries and now I wished I hadn’t. If I said anything to him about it, I knew he’d be angry.

Because of what I’d read in the library, I found it harder and harder to keep my mind on what he was saying. I was hungry too and couldn’t wait until it was supper time. Usually the evenings were mine and I was free to do what I wanted, but today he’d been working me very hard. Still, there was less than an hour before the sun went down and the worst of the lessons were over.

And then I heard a sound that made me groan inside.

It was a bell ringing. Not a church bell. No, this had the higher, thinner note of a much smaller bell – the one that was used by our visitors. Nobody was allowed up to the Spook’s house so people had to go to the crossroads and ring the bell there to let my master know they needed help.

‘Go and see to it, lad,’ the Spook said, nodding in the direction of the bell. Generally we would both have gone but he was still quite weak from his illness.

I didn’t rush. Once out of sight of the house and gardens, I settled down to a stroll. It was too close to dusk to do anything tonight, especially with the Spook still not properly recovered, so nothing would get done until morning anyway. I would bring back an account of the trouble and tell the Spook the details during supper. The later I got back, the less writing there’d be. I’d done enough for one day and my wrist was aching.

Overhung by willow trees, which we in the County call ‘withy trees’, the crossroads was a gloomy place even at noon and it always made me nervous. For one thing, you never knew who might be waiting there; for another, they almost always had bad news because that’s why they came. They needed the Spook’s help.

This time a lad was waiting there. He wore big miners’ boots and his fingernails were dirty. Looking even more nervous than I felt, he dashed off his tale so quickly that my ears couldn’t keep up and I had to ask him to repeat it. When he left, I set off back towards the house.

I didn’t stroll, I ran.

The Spook was standing by the bench with his head bowed. When I approached, he looked up and his face seemed sad. Somehow I guessed that he knew what I was going to say, but I told him anyway.

‘It’s bad news from Horshaw,’ I said, trying to catch my breath. ‘I’m sorry but it’s about your brother. The doctor couldn’t save him. He died yesterday morning, just before dawn. The funeral’s on Friday morning.’

The Spook gave a long, deep sigh and didn’t speak for several minutes. I didn’t know what to say so I just kept silent. It was hard to guess what he was feeling. As they hadn’t spoken for over forty years, they couldn’t have been that close, but the priest was still his brother and he must have had some happy memories of him – perhaps from before they’d quarrelled or when they were children.

At last the Spook sighed again and then he spoke.

‘Come on, lad,’ he said. ‘We might as well have an early supper.’

We ate in silence. The Spook picked at his food and I wondered if that was because of the bad news about his brother or because he still hadn’t got his appetite back since being ill. He usually spoke a few words, even if they were just to ask me how the meal was. It was almost a ritual because we had to keep praising the Spook’s pet boggart, which prepared all the meals, or it got sulky. Praise at supper was very important or the bacon would end up burned the following morning.

‘It’s a really good hotpot,’ I said at last. ‘I can’t remember when I last tasted one so good.’

The boggart was mostly invisible but sometimes took on the shape of a big ginger cat; if it was really pleased, it would rub itself against my legs under the kitchen table. This time there wasn’t even so much as a faint purr. Either I hadn’t sounded very convincing or it was keeping quiet because of the bad news.

The Spook suddenly pushed his plate away and scratched at his beard with his left hand. ‘We’re going to Priestown,’ he said suddenly. ‘We’ll set off first thing tomorrow.’

Priestown? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The Spook shunned the place like the plague and had once told me that he would never set foot within its boundaries. He hadn’t explained the reason and I’d never asked because you could always tell when he didn’t want to explain something. But when we’d been within spitting distance of the coast and needed to cross the river Ribble, the Spook’s hatred of the town had been a real nuisance. Instead of using the Priestown bridge we’d had to travel miles inland to the next one so that we could steer clear of it.

‘Why?’ I asked, my voice hardly more than a whisper, wondering if what I was saying might make him angry. I thought we might be going to Horshaw, for the funeral.’

‘We are going to the funeral, lad,’ the Spook said, his voice very calm and patient. ‘My daft brother only worked in Horshaw, but he was a priest: when a priest dies in the County, they take his body back to Priestown and hold a funeral service in the big cathedral there before laying his bones to rest in the churchyard.