Fury of the Seventh Son (Book 13) Read Online Free PDF Page B

coming to an end, but I shook it off and tried to think positively. My master and I probably had years left to work together.
    â€œI remember you telling me about it just after you’d taken me to the haunted house in Horshaw to see if I was brave enough to become your apprentice. You seemed angry about the letter.”
    â€œIt annoyed me at the time because of its presumption,” the Spook explained. “I’d never met your mam then, and I wondered just who she thought she was—to decide who my apprentice would be. Not only that. There was an element of prophecy in her letter—and as you know, I believe in free will, that we shape the future ourselves with our daily choices.”
    â€œBut that letter made you want to visit the Wardstone again? Is that right? Was it something to do with my name and the name of the hill being the same?”
    â€œCurb your curiosity and practice a little patience; it’s a quality that’s very useful when studying the unexplained. You’ll find out when we get there, lad,” my master retorted. “Now the sun will be going down in a couple of hours, so I think we’ve gone far enough for one day. Why don’t you catch us a couple of rabbits for our supper?”
    I was hungry and only too pleased to nod in agreement. The Spook found us a hollow in which to shelter from the wind, and I was glad to put down our bags and my staff and remove the bundle of wood from my back. My master was already laying the fire as I set off to hunt for our supper.
    A couple of hours later, we were eating the rabbits I’d caught and cooked. We didn’t speak much, but we were both enjoying ourselves. It was just like the early days, when I first became his apprentice and we used to walk across the fells a lot. I’d been nervous about the job and sometimes scared, too. But there’d been a sense of everything just beginning. Things had seemed so simple, I realized; now everything was much more complicated. Sometimes it was just good to appreciate being alive and not worry about the more problematic things . . . though the delicious rabbits put me in mind of Alice. She usually did the hunting and cooking when we were traveling, and the thought tempered my happiness a little.
    The rain began just before dawn and woke us. By then, the wind had become a gale, driving the rain almost horizontally above us so that mostly we remained dry in our hollow. But we could hear it drumming on the ground above, and I knew that the second phase of our journey to the Wardstone would be delayed.
    â€œWe’ll sleep late, lad,” said the Spook. “It’ll be wet enough up on yonder hill without turning ourselves into drowned rats before we even begin.”
    It was almost noon before the rain finally stopped and we were able to continue our journey east. The wind had died away almost to nothing, but the visibility was worsening.
    â€œI’ll carry my own bag,” the Spook told me. “The going gets difficult soon, and you’ll need the support of your staff.” He was quickly proved correct as we left what he told me was Grit Fell to follow a meandering muddy track through clumps of reddish grass.
    â€œKeep to the path, lad,” he warned. “The ground on either side is not just soggy. There are deep pools of stagnant water, no doubt swollen by the recent heavy rain. It’s worse where the grass grows tallest.”
    Without the Spook to guide me, I’d probably have blundered into the bog. He knew the County like the back of his hand and still had lots to teach me about traveling across it, particularly remote places like this.
    Finally we reached the summit of the Wardstone. Here we were shrouded in low cloud and unable to see that we were walking across one of the highest places in the County.
    â€œThere it is!” The Spook pointed ahead of us. Through the mist I could see a gigantic rock to which the name