The Seventh Apprentice Read online

  Instinctively I snatched up my staff, which was easier to hold. But even now, I didn’t stand and fight. I was too scared. I turned to run. . . .

  Well, I tried to. My legs wouldn’t obey me. I had staggered no more than a dozen paces before I fell to my knees, dropping the staff.

  Things were happening to me. Terrible things. I opened my mouth to protest, but I couldn’t seem to form words, and what came out of my mouth sounded like a belch.

  The strangeness I felt rapidly changed into discomfort and dread. All at once my body was racked with the worst pain I had ever experienced. I felt like I was stretching in some places and contracting elsewhere. My bones were clicking and snapping, my stomach churning, and my eyes felt as if two big thumbs were gouging them back into their sockets.

  At last the pain ceased and I sucked in a deep breath, realizing with horror that I had become a pig too.

  The witch took down the sharpened stick from the marble table. She gave an evil smile, flexed it between her hands, and then, so quickly that I hardly saw it coming, brought it down very hard across Peter’s back.

  He squealed and fled from her, but then she was striding back toward me. The pretty face had gone completely. Her cheeks were bloated, and she too had a wet snout instead of a human nose; her nails had become claws.

  Now it was my turn to feel the hot sting of the stick across my back, and I ran blindly, tears of pain streaming from my eyes. The witch followed close behind, striking my back again and again.

  There was an open gate ahead of us, and I trotted in after Peter just as fast as I could. I’d have done anything to avoid another painful cut of the witch’s stick across my bare back. I heard the gate being closed behind us and the latch dropping into place, and then I lay on the hard mud, panting with fear and exhaustion.

  After a while I climbed back up onto my four trotters and gazed about me. My vision was different. Everything seemed flattened, squashed down toward the ground. I saw the sun as an orange oval, once more low on the horizon, giving out no discernible warmth. Everything, even the sky overhead, had a strong orange tint to it. The world had lost the colors blue and green. The marble building had vanished; gone too was the hill of sun-scorched grass. We were back in the small deep valley. In the distance, I could see Sanderson’s farmhouse and barn. All that was absent was the mist.

  Even as that thought sluggishly entered my mind, the mist began to form again, white tendrils snaking around my trotters and twisting up toward my porky belly. Soon it was a thick wall of white, completely closing me in. I could no longer even see piggy Peter, but I could hear him snuffling close by.

  Although my body seemed to be totally pig, my mind retained some of its human qualities. I remembered who I was and I was only too well aware of my situation. At first, words came into my head only with great difficulty. The few I remembered helped me to think human thoughts, but I could not speak. My mouth was no longer the correct shape to utter words, and my tongue flopped about, completely out of control.

  My sense of time had also changed. It seemed to pass much more quickly than when I’d walked upright on two legs. The sun came up, the mist lifted, and in what seemed like only a couple of hours, it was suddenly setting again, plunging the world into darkness. I was sure that whole days were passing very rapidly.

  I wondered if I would remain a pig forever. . . . There was a slim chance that the Spook would reach Chipenden, read my note, and return here in time to deal with the witch and rescue us. But I realized that I had let him down: It would be difficult indeed for him to save me and Peter. The witch now had my staff and bag—and the Spook’s silver chain, his most useful weapon against her. Even if he arrived before anything more happened to us, he would be angry with me and might well carry out his threat to send me home.

  This bothered me for a while, but then my piggy needs became too dominant to ignore and I forgot about it. My sense of smell was greatly improved, and this enabled me to find food. For the moment, my greatest need was to eat.

  There was a large steaming heap of something interesting in the middle of our pen. I rooted and snuffled about in it, my nose savoring all its pungent odours. Looking back, I’m sure that most of it was pig muck. At the time this was just a nuisance, something that wasn’t worth eating. I searched around to find the delightful things buried within it: pieces of carrot and turnip, potato peelings, and raw chicken innards.

  I was almost happy being a pig.

  But all good things come to an end eventually.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE SLAUGHTER PEN

  FOR a while I almost forgot who I was. But after three or four days—it was hard to keep track of time—the pig witch returned.

  I smelled her before I heard her: to my heightened piggy senses, she stunk like an old dead sow, rank, rotting, and riddled with maggots. Then I heard her pointy shoes squelching through the mud toward the gate. Terrified, I looked for somewhere to hide, but everything in the pen was open to view. In any case, it was too late. She lifted the latch, opened the gate, and with many a thwack-swish-thwack of her flexible stick, drove us out of the pen and across the cold, hard mud to another gate.

  Peter was slow to go through the new gate, and she jabbed him hard with the pointed end of her stick. He squealed loudly, and as I trotted in behind him I saw a trickle of blood running down his side. Smarting with my own pain, I found myself in a much larger pen than the one we’d just left.

  Before leaving us alone once more, the witch gave a cackle, and then she said something that made me so afraid that my heart almost stopped.

  “A pen such as this is where most pigs end up!” she cried. “It’s your final home, so make the most of it. You won’t be here for long!”

  That really scared me. If it was to be our final home, then only one thing could follow—death!

  Without another word, the witch left us, shutting the gate and dropping the latch into place to close us in again.

  Peter was still squealing with pain. I was so distracted by the noise he was making that at first I didn’t notice our three other companions. What drew my attention to them was a dripping sound that could be heard despite Peter’s uproar.

  They were also pigs.

  And they were all dead.

  At the far end of the pen, two thick vertical poles supported a thinner horizontal beam. Hanging from this, by chains wrapped around their hind legs, were three dead pigs—two tusked boars and a sow. Their throats had been cut, and beneath each animal stood a hooped wooden bucket to catch its dripping blood.

  Until that point, apart from the urge to eat, my thoughts had remained vague. Now the sight before me shocked the thinking part of my brain into action again. I had three distinct thoughts:

  It looked like the work of a pig butcher.

  Most likely it was the work of the witch.

  We were now in the shape of pigs.

  With that third thought came sheer leg-wobbling terror, and my whole body started to shake. This was why she had brought us to this pen, I realized. This was where pigs were slaughtered. Soon Peter and I would also be hanging from that beam by our legs. The witch would cut our throats, and our lifeblood would flow into buckets beneath us.

  I was frantic to escape and began to run around the pen, butting my head against the horizontal planks of the fence. No matter how hard I pushed, it made no difference—apart from giving me a headache.

  I realized that it would be better if we joined forces to break down the fence, so I tried to persuade Peter to help me. I nudged him gently on the shoulder to catch his attention. While he was watching me, I rammed into the planks again, hoping that he would copy me, but I was disappointed. He just dropped his head and started searching around on the ground again. I suddenly remembered about the gate, and I trotted over and sniffed at it. All this told me was that it was made from a tree, and that about a week earlier, a dog had cocked its leg against it. It was an interesting smell, and it held my attention for quite some while u
ntil another thought drifted into my mind.

  Could we open the gate and escape? I wondered.

  I say “we,” but Peter was showing little interest in anything but the heap he was thrusting his snout into. Moments earlier he had been squealing from the pain of being lashed and jabbed by the pointed stick. Had he forgotten so quickly something that might soon happen again? Surely he too had noticed the dead pigs hanging from the beam? Could it be that my mind had remained a little more human than his? I knew there was a likely reason for this, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

  I had so many questions but no answers. Again I thought of the gate. Could I open it by myself?

  I had no hands, but I might be able to push the latch up with my snout. I tried just as hard as I could, standing on my hind legs and scrabbling with my front trotters. Yes! Yes! I was high enough. I could reach the latch with my snout and push it. . . .

  It was quite some time before I worked out why I couldn’t manage it.

  The latch was on the other side of the gate.

  Soon afterward the witch visited the pen again. Lifting the latch, she gave an evil laugh that ended in a wet, slobbering animal sound. Drops of slimy mucus dripped from the end of her wet snout, and she looked more like a pig than ever. Her cheeks were so puffy that her eyes looked like two tiny black beads.

  This time she didn’t strike us; simply pointed at us with the sharp end of her stick. The warning was enough. We hurried over to the far corner of the pen and cowered there while she went about her business.

  First, one by one, she carried the three buckets of blood out of the pen. When she returned, she was holding a big pair of scissors in her left hand and a small canvas bag in her right. To my horror and disgust, she knelt beneath the nearest of the hanging pigs and began to snip away at its trotters. She placed what she’d cut away in her little canvas bag.

  I was trembling, frozen to the spot with fear, and I could see Peter’s whole piggy body shaking too; although we couldn’t communicate, he must have been aware of what was going on. I would have done anything to get out of that pen, but the witch had closed the gate behind her.

  Holding the canvas bag in one hand, she turned back to face us, pointing the scissors at us. “Soon it’ll be your turn!” she threatened.

  She opened and closed the blades a couple of times. The metallic sound of those sharp scissors made me cringe. I could imagine them snipping away at my flesh.

  I watched fearfully as the witch turned and left the pen again, dropping the latch back into place.

  I wondered if Peter knew why she’d taken the six trotters. After all, he was the expert. I went over and nudged him again, attempting to get his attention, but he was only interested in that heap of manure. But now, all at once, I realized that something was different—a difference that was in me, not in Peter. Previously I had distinguished all sorts of enticing scents; now all that assailed my snout was the disgusting stink of pig muck.

  I backed away and was almost sick.

  Why had I lost my piggy appetite? I wondered.

  When the sun went down, I slept—to be awakened suddenly by the click of the latch.

  The witch was back.

  “It’s time you met my little friend!” she called out to us.

  What I saw by the pale light of the moon was both strange and terrifying.

  The witch’s wet snout and tiny piggy eyes were as hideous as ever, but as she closed the gate behind her and strode toward the dead pigs, I saw that she wasn’t alone. There was something following at her heels, clinging tightly to her long dark skirt, which trailed in the mud.

  It was black and hairy and about the size of a small dog. Although it had only four limbs, two arms and two legs, it reminded me of a spider. For one thing, it was skinny, with thin limbs and a sticklike body. It certainly wasn’t the grunting boar that had stalked me in the mist—a creature I’d feared—but in a way this beast was even scarier. There was something about the way it twitched, something about its state of readiness. It was waiting for something, waiting to pounce, and soon, at a signal from the witch, I found out what it was.

  She clapped her hands three times.

  At the first clap, the creature began to climb up her skirt. By the second, it was perching on her shoulder. No sooner had the echo of the third clap died away than it went into action, leaping from the witch’s shoulder straight onto the belly of the sow—the smallest of the dead pigs—clinging there with its sharp finger- and toenails.

  It was ferocious and very fast. Teeth gleaming in the moonlight, it began to eat ravenously. I couldn’t believe the speed with which it guzzled the raw flesh. It gnawed its way right into the belly and disappeared. I could hear it biting and tearing from within, making the carcass slowly spin back and forth on its creaking chains.

  I watched in astonishment as the creature emerged, having eaten its fill of the pig’s insides, and clambered up onto the sow’s back, giving me my first clear view of it in the moonlight.

  It had a narrow face and teeth, and I saw that its nose was a triangle of sharp bone, which it used to cut and tear at the dead flesh it feasted upon. It had whiskers too, very long and thick, more like bristles than hair. Then I noticed that it had no eyes, just a hard plate of bone that served as a forehead.

  As I watched, pink froth started to bubble from its mouth, and within seconds its whole face was obscured. Soon I realized the purpose of this.

  It had by now eaten enough flesh to lay bare the white ridged spine of the sow; raw flesh and gristle still clung to it. The froth from the creature’s mouth soon covered the bone, and then the creature began to lick it off. When the spine reappeared, it was absolutely clean.

  The creature proceeded to devour the whole pig in less than ten minutes, it seemed, and then it returned to the witch, grasping her skirt. All that remained of the pig was a skeleton gleaming in the moonlight.

  But the creature’s gluttony had changed it. The hairy limbs were still very thin, but now its belly was so bloated that it hung down and trailed on the ground. It waddled awkwardly as the witch led it away.

  Peter had stayed fast asleep throughout the whole terrible scene, so I was the only one who heard the witch’s threatening words:

  “Tomorrow I’ll hang you both up and slit your throats,” she hissed, her voice dripping with venom. “After that I’ll cut away your thumbs and then feed you to my little pet. Enjoy your last night on earth.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  THUMB BONES

  AFTER the witch had left the pen, I kept still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe lest the sound drew attention to me. I feared that she might change her mind and come back early to slaughter me.

  Then I started thinking over what she’d said: “I’ll cut away your thumbs and then feed you to my little pet.”

  My master had told me that some witches cut off the thumbs of those they killed. Then they boiled them in a cauldron until the flesh fell off from the bones. Magic could be stored in those bones.

  But I didn’t have thumbs anymore, did I? I had trotters.

  My mind seemed sharper now, and words that had been beyond my grasp now tumbled into my head and waited eagerly for me to use them.

  Illusion! That was an important word.

  I remembered my earlier thoughts on how all our senses combined and reinforced one another. But if we were being deceived, one sense might just point to the truth. I had recognized the witch for what she was because she stank of pig. No doubt the nectar I’d drunk had altered my senses in some way. Maybe now, at last, they were returning to normal—which was why I could no longer bear the smell of the manure. Peter didn’t seem to have undergone a similar change. As I watched, he opened his eyes and trotted over to the pig muck again. He began rooting inside it with his snout, found something interesting, and gulped it down.

  A seventh son of a seventh son had some resistance to the spells of a witch. Maybe that was why my mind, at least, was changing back to its human con
dition.

  I looked down at my trotters. They seemed real enough, but as I continued to stare at them, they began to shimmer. For a moment I grew dizzy, and the world spun about me. Then, suddenly, it was my hands that I was looking at. I was on all fours, and turning my head, I could see my boots. I was still wearing my sheepskin jacket and cloak, although they were covered in stinking slime and dirt.

  I hadn’t changed after all. It truly had been just an illusion—and I had finally managed to overcome it.

  I glanced across the pen at Peter. Now he too had reverted to his former human shape, the piece of dirty sacking still clinging to his shoulders.

  Finally I looked up at the three dead pigs hanging from the beam by their hind legs.

  My heart lurched as I realized that they were no longer pigs. I could see their true shape.

  In the middle was a human skeleton. Next to this hung an old man—probably Farmer Sanderson, I guessed. The other man was big, with a huge belly and a leather apron that hung down below his head. His eyes were wide open in death; they stared toward me but saw nothing. It was a pig butcher. It was Peter’s father.

  From all three murdered humans, something was missing.

  Their thumb bones had been cut away.

  I vomited until I feared that my stomach would twist itself into knots. This attracted Peter’s attention; he came over and sniffed at my vomit for a few moments before moving away. At last I stopped retching and my breath returned to normal. Horrified, I stared up at the grisly sight again, realizing that the skeleton must be that of the farmer’s wife.

  Peter was now in the far corner of the pen, snuffling away happily in his search for food. He was still under the influence of the witch’s magic and believed he was a pig.