Joseph Delaney - The Spook's Mistake

Her hair shone because it was saturated with water, and what I'd taken for a shawl was a smock covered in green scum, while on the lower half of her body she wore a ragged skirt caked with brown marsh slime. Her feet, which now protruded from beneath her hem, were bare and streaked with mud but they weren't human; the toes were webbed, each ending in a sharp talon.

I was about to turn, ready to flee back the way I'd come, when she touched two fingers to the upper lid of her left eye and it suddenly opened very wide.

The eye was red — and I don't just mean the iris! The whole eye looked as if it were completely filled with blood. I was petrified in both senses of the word: filled with terror and rendered immobile where I was standing, as if turned to stone. I began to sweat with fear as her red eye seemed to grow bigger and brighter.

I didn't even seem to be breathing: a constricting, choking sensation gripped my throat and upper chest. Neither could I tear my eyes away from the witch. If only I could look away, perhaps her power over me would be broken? I strained every muscle in my body, but to no avail. I just couldn't move.

Like a serpent, her left hand struck out towards my face. Her taloned forefinger went straight into my right ear and I felt a stab of pain as it curved and pierced it right through.

She stepped off the path into the marsh, dragging me after her. Two more paces and my feet began to sink into the bog. I flailed my arms at her but I was in agony from the talon that impaled my ear and could do nothing but follow in her wake as we sank deeper and deeper into the marsh.

How I wished I'd brought my staff. But I knew that even that wouldn't have helped because I'd been under the spell of the blood-filled eye, unable to move. What was she? Some sort of water witch? I tried to shout for help but all that escaped my lips was an animal moan of terror and pain.

The next moment there was a growl from the path behind and something black launched itself at my captor. I had a glimpse of Claw's bared fangs, then the witch's talon was ripped from my ear and I fell backwards. For a moment the marsh closed over my head. Instinctively I shut my mouth and held my breath, but even so the slime oozed up my nose and I felt myself sinking. Being able to swim was of little help. I was floundering, trying to get my head clear, when I felt hands grip me by the shoulders and start to drag me backwards.

Within moments I was lying on my back on the path and Arkwright was kneeling beside me, staring down with something approaching concern on his face. Then he put his fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle, and the dogs came back, stinking of the marsh, steam rising from their bodies. Claw was whimpering with pain but she had something in her mouth.

'Give it here!' Arkwright commanded. 'Drop it! Drop it now!'

With a growl, Claw allowed something to drop from her jaws into his open hand.

'Good dog! Good dog! What a wonderful girl you are! Finally, after all these years!' Arkwright shouted, his voice filled with triumph. 'We'll find her now! She won't get away this time. '

I looked at what he was holding in his hand, hardly able to believe what I was seeing.

It was a finger. A long forefinger with a green hue to the skin. And instead of a fingernail, it had a curved talon. Claw had bitten off the witch's finger.

Once back at the mill, Arkwright rushed out for the local doctor to attend to my injured ear. Despite his reluctance to allow a stranger into his home, he must have thought it serious enough to make an exception. The truth was, I didn't think it was that bad. It certainly wasn't hurting much. If anything worried me, it was the possibility of it becoming infected.

Arkwright watched critically as the doctor dressed my wound. He was a tall man with an athletic build and a healthy outdoor complexion, but he was as nervous as most people are in the presence of a spook and asked no questions about how I'd got the wound.

'I've cleaned it as well as I can but there's still some risk of infection,' he warned, looking anxiously down at the dogs, which growled threateningly at him. 'Still, you're young and youth has resilience. It'll leave a bit of a scar though.'

Once I'd been attended to, the doctor set to work on the wounded dog, who whined with pain while Arkwright held her down. Her injuries weren't life threatening but there were deep gouges in her chest and back where they had been raked by talons. The doctor cleaned these, then smeared them liberally with ointment.

As he picked up his bag to leave, he nodded at Arkwright. 'I'll call back the day after tomorrow to see how both my patients are doing.'

'I wouldn't waste your time, Doctor,' Arkwright growled, handing him a coin for his trouble. 'The boy's strong and I'm sure he'll be fine. As for the bitch, she'll be right as rain in a couple of days. But if it does prove necessary, I'll contact you.'

With those words, the doctor was dismissed and Arkwright escorted him across the moat.

'Claw saved your life,' he said on his return. 'But it wasn't for love of you. You're going to have to work hard with these dogs. We'll see if they'll let you feed them, but now we need to talk. How did it happen? How did the witch manage to get so close to you?'

'She was walking on the path ahead. I was running hard, trying to stay ahead of the dogs, and just wanted to pass her. When she turned round, it was too late. She hooked her talon through my ear before I could move. '

'Not many have survived being hooked, Master Ward, so you can count yourself lucky. Very lucky indeed. That method of seizing prey is practised by all water witches. Sometimes they thrust their finger into the mouth and spear the inside of the cheek,' he said, pointing to the scar on his own left cheek.

'Aye, that's her mark on me — I was lucky to get away. The same witch did it! It happened about seven weeks ago. Afterwards poison set in and I took to my bed for three weeks and almost died. Occasionally she stabs her victim through the hand — usually the left. Sometimes she even hooks upwards into the lower jaw and wraps her finger around the teeth. Had she done that, she'd have had a much better grip. As it was, she couldn't pull too hard or your ear might have ripped. But with a grip on your jaw, she'd have dragged you away into the marsh long before the bitch bit off her finger.'

'Who is she?' I asked. It seemed to me that Arkwright knew a lot about her.

'She's an old enemy of mine, Master Ward. One that I've hunted for a long time — the oldest and most dangerous of all the water witches.'

'Where has she come from?' I asked.

'She's very old,' he began. 'Some say a thousand years or more. I wouldn't necessarily agree with that myself but she's roamed this land for a very long time, in other counties as well as this. Stories about her go back for centuries. Marshes and fens are her favourite haunts but she likes lakes and canals too. I don't dignify common water witches with a name because they aren't like land-based witches. Most have lost the power of speech and are little better than animals. But this one's special: she's got two names. Morwena is her true name, but Bloodeye is the name some folk call her in the County. She's crafty. Very crafty. She often goes for easy prey such as young children but can easily pull a grown man into the water, draining him of blood while she slowly drowns him. However, as you know to your cost, her left eye is her most potent weapon. A single glance from that bloodeye can paralyse her prey.'

'How can we manage to get close to her?' I asked. 'One glance and we'll be rooted to the spot.'

Arkwright shook his head. 'It's not quite as bad as it seems, Master Ward. Some, like you, have been close and still survived to tell the tale. You see, she must conserve her power for when it's most needed. That left eye is often closed, the lids bound together with a sharp piece of bone, and it has a further limitation — it can only bind one person at a time.'