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more appropriate time. Now look at that,' he said, pointing up at the big chimney stack to where thick brown smoke was rising high into the air from the two rows of cylindrical pots. He jabbed towards the smoke with his forefinger. 'We're here to show the flag, lad.'
        I looked for a flag. All I could see was the smoke.
        'I mean that just by being here we're saying this land belongs to us and not to the dark,' the Spook explained. 'Standing up to the dark, especially up on Anglezarke, is a hard thing to do, but it's our duty and well worth it. Anyway' he said, picking up his jug, 'let's get inside and start cleaning.'
        For the next two hours I was really busy scrubbing, sweeping, polishing and going outside to beat clouds of dust from the rugs. Finally, after washing and drying the dirty dishes, the Spook told me to make up the beds in the three first-floor rooms.
        
'Three
beds?' I asked, wondering if I'd misheard him.
        'Aye, three it is, and when you've finished you'd better go and wash your ears out! Go on! Don't stand there gawping. We haven't got all day'
        So, with a shrug, I did as I was told. The linen was damp but I turned the sheets down so that the fires would dry them out. That done, exhausted with my efforts, I went downstairs. It was as I passed the cellar steps that I heard something that made the hair on the back of my neck start to rise.
        From below, I heard what sounded like a long shuddering sigh, followed almost immediately by a faint cry. I waited at the top of the steps on the edge of the darkness, listening carefully, but it wasn't repeated. Had I imagined it?
        I went into the kitchen to find the Spook washing his hands in the sink.
        T heard something cry out from the cellar' I told him. Ts it a ghost?'
        'Nay lad, there are no ghosts in this house now - I sorted them all out years ago. No, that'll be Meg. No doubt she's just woken up.'
        I wasn't sure if I'd misheard him. I'd been told I'd meet Meg and knew that she was a lamia witch living somewhere up on Anglezarke. I'd also half expected to find her staying in the Spook's house. But seeing it abandoned and cold had driven that prospect from my head. Why would she be sleeping down there in a bitterly cold cellar? I was curious, but knew better than to ask questions at the wrong time.
        Sometimes the Spook was in the mood for answering, and he'd sit me down and tell me to get out my notebook and fill my pen with ink, ready to write. At other times he just wanted to get on with the business in hand, and now I could see the determined expression glinting in his green eyes, so I just kept quiet while he lit a candle.
        I followed him down the stone cellar steps. I wasn't exactly scared because he knew what he was doing, but I was certainly very nervous. I'd never met a lamia witch before, and although I'd read a bit about them, I didn't know what to expect. And how had she managed to survive down there in the cold and dark all through the spring, summer and autumn? What had she been eating? Slugs, worms, insects and snails, like the witches the Spook bound in pits?
        When the steps turned the first corner, there was an iron trellis gate blocking our way. Beyond it, the steps suddenly became much wider so that four people could have walked down side by side. I'd never seen such wide cellar steps before. Not far beyond the gate I could see a door set into the wall and I wondered what was behind it. The Spook took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock. It wasn't his usual key.
        'Is it a complicated lock?' I asked.
        'That it is, lad' he said. 'More complicated than most. If you ever need it, I usually keep this key on top of the bookcase in the study closest to the door.'
        When he opened the gate, it made a clanging noise so loud that it seemed to ring right through the stones both upwards and downwards, so that the