“So we must take into account the runes, the rituals in the woods close to Top Withens Hall, the rumours of conferring with the devil and all that Lizzy Goode told us. It takes a particular kind of evil to steal away and harm a child. And it takes control to keep such impulses in check for long periods of time—years, even.” Emily hesitated as, at that moment, all of them thought of the children, including young Joseph. “Tom was taken before the bones were discovered—and escaped. So even if our actions have excited the monster, there must be something else—something apart from the discovery of the Top Withens bones—that urges them to act, a darker need than a new moon that we are as yet unable to comprehend.”

“And what about the song that the children heard being sung? They said it was very old. Can that tell us anything more?”

“Tabby?” Emily called to the kitchen. “Will you come to us?”

“I suppose I must,” Tabby said, “though I was expecting you to be out leading the constable to where poor Joseph is hidden, as you told the rabble out there.”

“We will be directly,” Emily told her. “Listen to this refrain the children sang to me, and tell me if you know the words of the song.”

As Emily sang the melody, the room grew still, darkness gathering in every corner.

“I do,” Tabby said, shuddering. “Dreary old misery of a song it is too. Why would children know such a horrible dirge? It’s a tale to strike fear into your heart.”

“They only hummed it,” Emily said. “Could you perhaps sing it for us, Tabby?”

“I will, but be warned, it’s about a mother who kills her own babes.” Tabby looked most aggrieved, but even so she obliged, clearing her throat before she began.

And she didn’t care how much it hurt.

There she stabbed them right through the heart.

She wiped her penknife in the sludge,

And the more she wiped it, the more blood showed.

“Heavens,” Charlotte said. “What awful words!”

“Folk songs were the newspapers of their day, don’t forget,” Tabby told them. “That’s how we’d learn about the rest of the world that weren’t ours. It can’t all be folderols and falling in love.”

“Bess!” Emily stood up abruptly, slamming her hand down on the table. “I have heard those words before, whispered into my ear. I thought it was just nonsense spoken by an old lady with a gone-away mind . . . but it was Bess—Bess of Top Withens—who whispered the words of the monster’s song in my ear.”

“Then could it have been mad Old Bess who killed the boy?” Anne said. “We thought she was addled by age, but perhaps it was guilt that drove her mad, her strange ways and violent thoughts. She’s like a living ghost.”