The Spook's Bestiary - By Joseph Delaney Page 0,10
be able to wash it under the tap because it would simply dissolve. Witches can’t cross rivers or streams, but all servants of the dark find running water extremely difficult to deal with.
The smile left the boggart’s face. It frowned, showed its teeth, then disappeared. It was maybe all of five seconds before it stood before me once more, now holding a rope made out of sand but looking doubtfully toward the sink.
It didn’t want to do it, but we had a contract of sorts and the creature had no choice. When it held the rope under the tap, of course, the sand just washed away between its fingers and ran down the plughole. So when the boggart walked back toward the desk, its face like a thundercloud, I gave a big smile in order to make it angry.
“I win,” I said mockingly. “Off you go, right back to where you came from!”
It leaned across the desk toward me until its forehead was almost touching mine, and the mean, vindictive expression on its face told me that it had no intention of keeping its end of the bargain. The boggart’s breath smelled so bad that I moved back a little, but not too far. Just so that I could reach into my breeches pockets.
I hurled something white from my right hand and something dark from my left. Salt and iron. Salt to burn the boggart; iron to bleed away its power. They came together, a lethal-white-and black cloud, just as they struck the creature’s face and shoulders.
What happened next wasn’t a pretty sight. The boggart, howling fit to wake the dead, began to crumple and melt. Within seconds it was nothing more than an unpleasant puddle on the schoolroom floor.
After that I went back and had supper with the schoolteacher, explaining that we’d been dealing with a boggart rather than the Devil. He listened patiently, but I’m not sure he really believed me. Later he must have told his version of what happened to all who’d listen, explaining how he’d cleverly invented a third task that the Devil couldn’t perform.
Years later, the tale of how a clever Cockerham schoolmaster outwitted the Devil is still being told across the County. To make things worse, he never did pay me for getting rid of the boggart!
NOTORIOUS BOGGARTS
NAME: Bury Boggart
CATEGORY: Bone breaker—used by the witch Anne Caxton to snatch the bones of the living for dark magic
RANK: 1
BOUND OR SLAIN: Slain
SPOOK: Henry Horrocks (my own master)
APPRENTICE
IN ATTENDANCE: I was with Horrocks but didn’t become his apprentice until five years later
NUMBER OF VICTIMS: Three, including his former apprentice, Brian Harwood
NAME: Coniston Ripper
CATEGORY: Cattle ripper turned rogue
RANK: 1
BOUND OR SLAIN: Slain
SPOOK: Bill Arkwright
APPRENTICE
IN ATTENDANCE: None
NUMBER OF VICTIMS: Thirty at least
NAME: Wheeton Goat
CATEGORY: Hairy boggart
RANK: 2
BOUND OR SLAIN: Slain
SPOOK: John Gregory
APPRENTICE
IN ATTENDANCE: Paul Preston
NUMBER OF VICTIMS: One—my apprentice, Paul Preston
NAME: Horshaw Boggart
CATEGORY: Cattle ripper turned rogue
RANK: 1
BOUND OR SLAIN: Bound
SPOOK: Thomas Ward (apprentice)
NUMBER OF VICTIMS: One—my foolish priest brother
NAME: Pendle Ripper
CATEGORY: Cattle ripper turned rogue; used by Malkin witch clan to attack their enemies
RANK: 1
BOUND OR SLAIN: Still at large
NUMBER OF VICTIMS: More than one hundred deaths in forty years
CURRENT SITUATION: Active more than seventy years ago, now dormant; controlled by dark magic
NAME: Layton Ripper
CATEGORY: Cattle ripper turned rogue
RANK: 1
BOUND OR SLAIN: Slain
SPOOK: John Gregory
NUMBER OF VICTIMS: Just one—my apprentice Billy Bradley, who behaved rashly
NAME: Rivington Sheep Ripper
CATEGORY: Cattle ripper turned rogue; got a taste for shepherds
RANK: 1
BOUND OR SLAIN: Slain
SPOOK: John Gregory
NUMBER OF VICTIMS: Six; killed five shepherds and a parish constable
NAME: Staumin Hall Knocker
CATEGORY: Hall knocker
RANK: 1
BOUND OR SLAIN: Bound
SPOOK: Robert Stocks—by then he had a second trade at his fingertips: He was also a priest
APPRENTICE
IN ATTENDANCE: None
NUMBER OF VICTIMS: One suicide induced by fear
* * *
1Leys are lines of power beneath the earth: secret invisible roads that boggarts can travel. Several intersect underneath the Spook’s Chipenden house, and sometimes you can hear a loud deep rumble as a boggart passes by below. This is particularly scary, and I’ve lost more nights of sleep because of this than I care to remember.—apprentice Paul Preston
2I was born near Hackensall Hall and a glimpse of the horse boggart there, when I was just five years old, was my first warning that I had the gift of seeing the dead and other creatures such as boggarts. My father had left my mother, running off with another woman, and only years later did I learn that he had also been a seventh son.—apprentice James Fowler
3Father Stocks was killed