“Do you think this is it?” said Colin.

“Ugh, yes! There couldn’t be two like this, and it’s a black lake all right! I wonder what’s happened?”

“Oh, let’s go,” said Colin: “this place gives me the willies. We’ve done what we set out to do; now let’s enjoy the rest of the day.”

After a cup of coffee in Wilmslow to dispel the Lindow gloom, the children pedalled back towards Alderley. They had no plans, but the sun was warm, and there were a good six hours of daylight left to them.

They were crossing the station bridge at Alderley when they saw it. A light breeze, blowing from the northeast trailed the village smoke slowly along the sky, but half-way up the nearer slope of the Edge a ball of mist hung as though moored to the trees. And out of the mist rose the chimneys and gaunt gables of St Mary’s Clyffe, the home of Selina Place.

CHAPTER 9

St Mary’s Clyffe

The room was long, with a high ceiling, painted black. Round the walls and about the windows were draped black velvet tapestries. The bare wooden floor was stained a deep red. There was a table on which lay a rod, forked at the end, and a silver plate containing a mound of red powder. On one side of the table was a reading-stand, which supported an old vellum book of great size, and on the other stood a brazier of glowing coals. There was no other furniture of any kind.

Grimnir looked on with much bad grace as Shape-shifter moved through the ritual of preparation. He did not like witch-magic: it relied too much on clumsy nature spirits and the slow brewing of hate. He preferred the lightning stroke of fear and the dark powers of the mind.

But certainly this crude magic had weight.