Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1) A New Job
2) From Bad to Worse
3) On the Stroke of Midnight
4) The Prisoner in the Witch Well
5) Long-Neck Netty
6) Freedom
The Author's Own Ghost Story
The Illustrator's Own Ghost Story
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781448187539
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First published in 2013 by
ANDERSEN PRESS LIMITED
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London SW1V 2SA
www.andersenpress.co.uk
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
The rights of Joseph Delaney and Chris Riddell to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Text copyright © Joseph Delaney, 2013
Illustrations copyright © Scott M. Fischer, 2013
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
ISBN 978 1 84939 777 3
For Marie
‘For pity’s sake, get up, lad. Do you want to lose the job before you’ve even started?’
I looked around disorientated, wiping drool from my chin. What time was it? I felt like I’d been in bed no time at all.
‘Come on, Billy,’ Mrs Hendle said, more kindly this time. ‘They told you to be there an hour after sunset and it’s that time already.’ She passed me my jacket, hanging over the chair, and I pulled myself wearily out of bed.
A few of the other lads ran into the room, laughing and jeering, but she soon shut them up. I could still hear them though, sniggering. ‘You gonna be scared up there, Billy?’ ‘Don’t you want to go?!’
‘Get away with you!’ I shouted as I barged my way to the door sending them scattering in every direction. Bloomin’ brats.
But they were right. I was really scared. This wasn’t the sort of job I’d been hoping for. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’ my ma used to say, God rest her soul. And she was right. There aren’t many jobs lads from the orphanage can get. I was lucky to have this one. A few more weeks' training and I’d have enough put by to move away from this stupid Home for Unfortunate Boys. It would all be worth it in the end.
Carrying my lantern, I jogged down the steps and out of the village. As I ran along the country lanes I could see the castle up ahead of me and I made towards it, trying to be brave. After all, I wasn’t going to be imprisoned there. I was just going to work there guarding the prisoners. Those other lads were being silly. Just jealous. It was a job and I was going to do it.
But I knew why they thought I should be scared; why I was scared. It was who I’d be guarding that was the problem: murderers, common criminals and convicted witches. That was my job. Or at least it would be once I’d finished my training.
There was a new moon, slender and horned, soon to be overwhelmed by the dark clouds blustering in from the west. I shivered but not just with cold. I’d heard stories about the castle after dark, about things long-dead that walked its damp corridors. And there wasn’t a person alive in the village who hadn’t heard the screams coming from there: low agonising moaning, wild hysterical cackles, wretched mournful sobbing – we’d heard them all.