Before going back to the house, I also practiced for ten minutes with my silver chain, the spook’s other main weapon, casting it again and again over the post in the garden. I was pleased to discover that my skill with this was undiminished. I didn’t miss once. It had always been one of my strengths—I could cast it over a witch even when she was running directly toward me.

Pleased with myself, I headed back for breakfast. I’d built up a good appetite.

I sat alone at the table with a big portion of ham and eggs steaming on the plate before me. At one time I would have wolfed it all down and helped myself to more. But my appetite was poor these days, and I only picked at my food.

During breakfast, my master and I used to discuss previous events or our plans for the coming day. I missed all that, but of course I wasn’t truly alone.

I could hear a faint purring.

It was the boggart, Kratch.

There were many different types of dark entities like this, and it was a spook’s job to deal with them. For example, there were ripper boggarts that drank the blood of animals and people; stone chuckers that threw stones. Both of these could kill, so a spook had to bind or slay them. Other boggarts just played tricks on folk and scared them; they were just moved on to a different location—usually a deserted spot far from human habitation. However, Kratch was a cat boggart, and although it was dangerous and could kill, my master had dealt with it in a different way.

This boggart cooked the breakfast and guarded the house and garden. In exchange, after issuing three warnings to any intruders, it was permitted to kill them and drink their blood. My master had made this pact with Kratch, and I had renewed it.

The creature rarely made itself visible, but when it did so, it took the form of a ginger tomcat that varied in size depending on its mood. The purring faded now, and I sensed it moving away from me. Moments later it appeared on the hearth rug, curling up in front of the embers of the fire. I wondered if perhaps it was some type of boggart that had killed the girls. But almost immediately I dismissed that possibility. For one thing, the murderous creature had worn a long coat, and boggarts definitely didn’t wear clothes of any type. Secondly, none of the places where the girls had been killed were on ley lines—the invisible paths along which boggarts moved from location to location.

After finishing what breakfast I could manage, I went down to the village to pick up the week’s provisions, calling in at the shops in the usual order: the butcher’s, the greengrocer’s, and finally the baker’s.

In recent months, the dark had been relatively quiet. Few had visited the withy trees crossroads outside the house to ring the bell that would summon me. However, I had spent much of my time thinking and trying to puzzle out what had killed the girls . . . so far, without success.