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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