Salt and iron – the same mixture so effective against a boggart. Iron to bleed away its strength; salt to burn it. Iron filings from the edge of the old bucket and salt from Mam’s kitchen store. I was just hoping that it would have the same effect on a witch.

I suppose having a mixture like that thrown into your face wouldn’t do anybody much good – at the very least it would make you cough and splutter – but the effect on Snout was much worse than that. First he opened his hand and let the knife fall. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he pitched slowly forward, down onto his knees. Then he hit his forehead very hard on the ground and his face twisted to one side.

Something thick and slimy began to ooze out of his left nostril. I just stood there watching, unable to move as Mother Malkin slowly bubbled and twisted from his nose into the shape that I remembered. It was her all right, but some of her was the same while other bits were different.

For one thing, she was less than a third of the size she’d been the last time I saw her. Now her shoulders were hardly past my knees, but she was still wearing the long cloak, which was trailing on the ground, and the grey and white hair still fell onto her hunched shoulders like mildewy curtains. It was her skin that was really different. All glistening, strange and sort of twisted and stretched. However, the red eyes hadn’t changed, and they glared at me once before she turned and began to move away towards the corner of the barn. She seemed to be shrinking even more and I wondered if that was the salt and iron still having an effect. I didn’t know what more I could do, so I just stood there watching her go, too exhausted to move.

Alice wasn’t having that. By now she’d handed the baby to Ellie and she came running across and made straight for the fire. She picked up a piece of wood that was burning at one end, then ran at Mother Malkin, holding it out in front of her.

I knew what she was going to do. One touch and the witch would go up in flames. Something inside me couldn’t let that happen because it was too horrible, so I caught Alice by the arm as she ran past and spun her round so that she dropped the burning log.

She turned on me, her face full of fury, and I thought I was about to feel a pointy shoe. Instead, she gripped my forearm so tightly that her fingernails actually bit deep into the flesh.

‘Get harder or you won’t survive!’ she hissed into my face. ‘Just doing what Old Gregory says won’t be enough. You’ll die like the others!’

She released my arm and I looked down at it and saw beads of blood where her nails had cut into me.

‘You have to burn a witch,’ Alice said, the anger in her voice lessening, ‘to make sure they don’t come back. Putting them in the ground ain’t no good. It just delays things. Old Gregory knows that but he’s too soft to use burning. Now it’s too late…’

Mother Malkin was disappearing round the side of the barn into the shadows, still shrinking with each step, her black cloak trailing on the ground behind her.

It was then that I realized the witch had made a big mistake. She’d taken the wrong route, right across the largest pigpen. By now she was small enough to fit under the lowest plank of wood.

The pigs had had a very bad day. Five of their number had been slaughtered and it had been a very noisy, messy business that had probably scared them pretty badly. So they weren’t best pleased, to say the least, and it probably wasn’t a good time to go into their pen. And big hairy pigs will eat anything, anything at all. Soon it was Mother Malkin’s turn to scream and it went on for a long time.

‘Could be as good as burning, that,’ said Alice, when the sound finally faded away. I could see the relief in her face. I felt the same. We were both glad it was all over. I was tired, so I just shrugged, not sure what to think, but I was already looking back towards Ellie and I didn’t like what I saw.

Ellie was frightened, and she was horrified. She was looking at us as if she couldn’t believe what had happened and what we’d done. It was as if she’d seen me properly for the first time. As if she’d suddenly realized what I was.

I understood something too. For the first time I really felt what it was like to be the Spook’s apprentice. I’d seen people move to the other side of the road to avoid passing close to us. I’d watched them shiver or cross themselves just because we’d passed through their village, but I hadn’t taken it personally. In my mind it was their reaction to the Spook, not to me.

But I couldn’t ignore this, or push it to the side of my mind. It was happening to me directly and it was happening in my own home.

I suddenly felt more alone than I ever had before.

Chapter Fourteen

But not everything turned out badly. Jack wasn’t dead after all. I didn’t like to ask too many questions because it just got everybody upset, but it seemed that one minute Snout had been about to start scraping the belly of the fifth pig with Jack, and the next he’d suddenly gone berserk and attacked him.

It was just pig’s blood on Jack’s face. He’d been knocked unconscious with a piece of timber. Snout had then gone into the house and snatched the baby. He’d wanted to use it as bait to get close so that he could use his knife on me.

Of course, the way I’m telling it now isn’t quite right. It wasn’t really Snout doing these terrible things. He’d been possessed, and Mother Malkin was just using his body. After a couple of hours Snout recovered and went home puzzled and nursing a very sore belly. He didn’t seem to remember anything about what had happened, and none of us wanted to enlighten him.

Nobody slept much that night. After building the fire up high, Ellie stayed down in the kitchen all night and wouldn’t let the baby out of her sight. Jack went to bed nursing a sore head but he kept waking up and having to dash outside to be sick in the yard.

An hour or so before dawn, Mam came home. She didn’t seem very happy either. It was as if something had gone wrong.

I lifted her bag to carry it into the house. ‘Are you all right, Mam?’ I asked. ‘You look tired.’

‘Never mind me, son. What’s happened here? I can tell something’s wrong just by looking at your face.’

‘It’s a long story,’ I said. ‘We’d better get inside first.’

When we walked into the kitchen Ellie was so relieved to see Mam that she started to cry and that set the baby off crying too. Jack came down then and everybody tried to tell Mam things at once, but I gave up after a few seconds because Jack started off on one of his rants.

Mam shut him up pretty quickly. ‘Lower your voice, Jack,’ she told him. ‘This is still my house and I can’t abide shouting.’

He wasn’t happy at being told off in front of Ellie like that but he knew better than to argue.

She made each one of us tell her exactly what had happened, starting with Jack. I was the last, and when it was my turn, she sent Ellie and Jack up to bed so that we could talk alone. Not that she said much. She just listened quietly, then held my hand.

Finally she went up to Alice’s room and spent a long time talking to her alone.

The sun had been up less than an hour when the Spook arrived. Somehow I’d been expecting him. He waited at the gate and I went out and told the tale again, while he leaned on his staff. When I’d finished he shook his head.

‘I sensed that something was wrong, lad, but I came too late. Still, you did all right. You used your initiative and managed to remember some of the things I’d taught you. If all else fails, you can always fall back on salt and iron.’

‘Should I have let Alice burn Mother Malkin?’ I asked.