She seemed to speak from the heart, and my instincts told me that she wasn’t lying. I was impressed. Empathy could be very useful for a spook’s apprentice. She had been able to attune her mind to the anguish of ghasts, something I certainly couldn’t do.

“Right,” I told her. “Turn round!”

She turned to face me, her eyes swollen, her face wet with tears.

I held out my bag to her. “Carry this!” I said. “It’s one of the advantages of being a spook that you don’t have to carry your own bag. That’s what an apprentice is for.”

“You’re giving me another chance?” she asked, her eyes widening in astonishment.

“Yes, one more chance!” I told her. “The very last.”

However, I still needed to find out how strong she really was.

The Spook had used his haunted house test on all of his apprentices.

I’d just thought up one of my own.

13

Tom Ward’s Test

JENNY had been aware of the ghasts in Watery Lane, but it was supposedly her feelings of empathy with them that had caused her to flee. Could she get really close to one and stand her ground? If not, there was no way I could take her on as my apprentice. To deal with the dead, you had to be able to do exactly that. It was a necessary part of the job.

Many years ago, there’d been a bitter civil war, and the victorious army had hanged some soldiers in a place that became known as Hangman’s Hill. It was on the northern boundary of Dad’s farm, the place where I’d been brought up.

When the ghasts of the dead soldiers were particularly active, I’d been able to hear them twisting and groaning on the ends of their ropes. It had even kept some of my older brothers awake and made them uneasy—though my eldest brother, Jack, had slept through it all like a log!

Jack was one of the least sensitive people I’d ever encountered, but even he wouldn’t go into the north pasture when the ghasts were at their most active. So you see, everybody has some sensitivity to the dark.

The fact that Jenny had been so aware of the ghasts in the haunted house didn’t mean that she had what was necessary to become my apprentice. She had to demonstrate courage too. For all I knew, all that talk about empathy was just an excuse, and she’d fled in fear. I had to be sure.

My test would be to take her to confront these ghasts on Hangman’s Hill.

We approached it from the north, heading up into the gloom beneath the trees. It got colder as we climbed—that special kind of cold that sometimes warns a seventh son of a seventh son that something from the dark is close by.

I wondered if Jenny could sense it too.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“A bit chilly,” she replied.

I made no further comment.

I heard the branches creaking and groaning before I saw them. The dead soldiers were in among the trees just below the summit, hanging from the branches, still in their uniforms and boots. Some dangled, inert, with bulging eyes and twisted necks; others danced and kicked or spun; all had their hands bound behind their backs. They were young too, mostly about my age. It was a pitiful sight.