The Spook's Bestiary - By Joseph Delaney Page 0,21

of a woman called Emily Burns, whom I’d once been very close to. So as a favor to her, and to help Morgan and get him away from that dreadful situation, where his adoptive parents held him responsible for their daughter’s death, I took him on as my apprentice. It proved to be one of the biggest mistakes of my long life.

During our winter visits to Anglezarke, unlikely though it might seem, Morgan seemed to grow closer to the Hursts. He took to visiting them at Moor View Farm and even spent the occasional night there. I didn’t object, thinking that his presence might afford them some consolation. Perhaps they’d realized that they had played a part in causing Eveline to take her own life and were trying to make amends in some way.

I was careless—I realize that now. The boy often wandered onto the bleak moor and was obsessed by an ancient burial mound called the Round Loaf. Beneath it, supposedly, was a secret chamber where the ancients once worshipped one of the Old Gods. This deity was Golgoth, the Lord of Winter, and it was believed that the meddling of those ancient priests as they tried to raise their god brought about the last Ice Age, when Golgoth had stayed in our world, freezing it in the grip of an extended winter that had resulted in thousands of deaths.

I’d caught Morgan digging into the mound more than once. He didn’t find the secret chamber then but discovered something else that I hadn’t even suspected was there. Morgan had been preparing for months to attempt a terrible summoning; as his master, I failed to guess the danger. As a spook, I must confess that I failed the County.

Late one winter’s night there was a loud rapping on the back door of my winter house; on the doorstep was Mr. Hurst, wrapped up well against the snow that was beginning to whirl down out of the dark clouds above.

“Come inside, man, before you freeze to death!” I cried, welcoming him into the kitchen. “What brings you out on such a night?”

The walk up from the farm was difficult in winter, but when a blizzard threatened, it was dangerous to life. Even someone with a lifetime of local knowledge might get lost in the snow, which would mean certain death before morning.

“We need you back at the farm quickly!” Mr Hurst told me. “Something terrible’s happening. . . .” At that, his jaw clamped shut and his whole body began to tremble.

“Take your time,” I said, sitting him down on a stool close to the fire and handing him the cup of the hot broth I’d prepared for my supper. “Your need may be urgent, but I must know exactly what I’m dealing with.”

So, as the old farmer sipped his broth and got some warmth back into his bones, he began to tell his tale.

“It’s that daft lad Morgan,” he said. “He’s locked himself in his room and is up to no good. He’s using dark magic, I’m sure of it!”

“His bedroom?” I asked.

“Nay, the front room, where he writes things in his notebook and does his reading.”

‘“Reading? What reading?” I asked. Writing up what he’d learned in his notebook was only to be expected, but I brought few books with me from Chipenden to my cold, damp house on Anglezarke Moor; those I did were kept in the warmest room and rarely allowed out of my sight. My books are precious to me, a store of knowledge that I fear to lose.

“He came home with a big leather book a few weeks ago, and he’s hardly had his nose out of it since. But tonight he locked himself in the room. First he carried a sack in there; then he dragged the farm dog in. Now he won’t answer the door, and the poor animal keeps whining. It sounds terrified out of its skin. There are other sounds, too. And the whole house seems to be getting really cold despite all the logs we heap on the fire. Our breath is steaming and ice is forming on the outside of the door of Morgan’s room.”

“What other sounds are there?” I cried, jumping to my feet. Suddenly I’d glimpsed how great the danger might be.

“Bells keep ringing. Not small bells. One sounds like a big church bell, so loud that the wooden floors vibrate with each peal. And from time to time there’s a deep grinding sound that seems to come