“It might be that we journeyed in vain, as you are not precisely a witch,” Emily said, producing from her pocket the drawing she had made of the strange design. “We recently came across these symbols inscribed within the hidden burial place of a child we suspect might have been murdered. We are trying to find out the names of the child and of the one who would commit such a crime. The only further information we have is a drawing of part of a similar design found in a two-hundred-year-old book of charms. And we believe it might have some link to the stones in the copse near Top Withens.”

“I see,” Lizzy said, eyeing each of them in turn. “Well, then, I shall reveal to you a great and closely guarded secret, and if you ever reveal it, I will hunt you down and cast a thousand curses on your heads. Do you wish to continue?”

“We wish to continue,” Emily said.

“We swear to keep your secrets.” Anne nodded.

“I could wait outside?” Branwell offered.

“Too late now,” Lizzy told him. “Your fate is already sealed. I am a witch, not a wisewoman or a silly girl who fancies herself good with herbs and charms. I am a Pendle witch born into the old magic that has been practised and protected by them like me since those ancient times when they would call us Druid. And if you ask for a wisdom of dark magic, then you must be prepared to pay that price. Are you prepared?”

“Yes,” Emily said at once.

“Then we shall continue. Let me see what you have brought me.”

“Here.” Emily handed Lizzy her drawing.

Lizzy held the paper under the shaft of smoky daylight, her eyes squinting as they first adjusted to the light, then widening. Before Emily could say anything, Lizzy had thrown the drawing onto the fire and leapt to her feet, then begun tossing various leaves and powders into the flames to make them spark and briefly change colour as she murmured some kind of incantation.

“Lizzy, what did you see on the paper?” Emily asked her, also taking to her feet so that Keeper fell over onto his side midsnore. “Why did you burn it when we are not sure we are done with it?”